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A PAPER 



READ BEFORE THE 



eit^gi^i^jifi g©eiBfy 



Ex-Army and Navy Officers, 



JANUARY 3d, 18S4. 



Hon. CHARLES ANDERSON, 

Late Colonel Ninety-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry. 



C I NCINNATI; 
PETER G. THOMSON, Publisher, 
1884. 



72 



Before, and on the Eve of the 

REBELLION. 






Comrades and Ladies and Gentlemen: — It is very doubtful 
whether any of you fully comprehend the significance of our evening's 
topic : Texas and her action and influence in and upo?t the Rebellion. 
It may be very likely, as usual, that your speaker, on this occasion, as 
much overrates, as his audience underrates, his subject. But even with 
this caution, you will be surprised to hear a statement of this my be- 
lief; that, excepting South Carolina alone, Texas had more to do with 
starting that colossal blunder and crime than any half dozen other 
States of the Confederacy, and that, without the movements of Texas, 
the Rebellion would have aborted in its earliest stages, and closed as a 
ridiculous farce, instead of in that horrific tragedy, which so startled and 
grieved the Nation and the World. Let us briefly generalize the facts, 
which seem to justify this, her claim, to that bad preeminence. 

The History of Texas was very peculiar. Her independence of 
Mexico was won by the cunning and heroism of mere adventurers. 
Like spirits followed after these in the permanent settlement of that 
"Lone Star Nation." It was but natural that, with such a start into 
national life, secrecy, address, boldness, and disregard of the established 
codes of morality, or of law and order, in and between men and nationsi 
should have been characteristics of this new people. And that the sub- 
sequent enterprise — in one sense new — the annexation of this vast ter- 
ritory as a slave State against all the laws and traditions of Mexico, and 
a most earnest and passionate opposition of a large majority of the best 
people of the United States, must necessarily have called into life, and 
most energetic action, the same qualities of sly conspiracy and bold 
execution, was a very certain consequence. 



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— 4 — 



Then was brought on our war with Mexico, so infamous in its de- 
signs and false pretenses, and so important, if not grand and glorious, 
in its far-reaching and complicated results. In all these stages of this 
great Texas-plot, it is plain enough, that characteristics of the same kind 
should have been developed in her people. And so the Texans of 
1859-60 were the very stuff, fitted and ready for a new and grander 
adventure of intringue, conspiracy, revolution, rebellion, and war, than 
had been either of their former enterprises in these lines. 

Next ; Texas held within her vast area almost the one-half of our 
entire standing army (two thousand six hundred and twelve men), with 
arms, ordnance, munitions, and complete furnitures and supplies for an 
army. These cost millions of dollars, and, in such an enterprise, were 
worth vastly more to either party in possession — the Government or the 
Rebels. What a devil's hint and devil's opportunity lurked in this con- 
dition of a State, when tempted by unprincipled demagogues, to revolt! 

Again ; behold how her very magnitude of area and boundaries 
became a facility for successful treason, rebellion, and their war. Her 
area was 237,231 square miles — more than six-fold Ohio or Kentucky — 
and her exposed frontiers, between fourteen and seventeen hundred 
miles long. And this vast line of frontier was exposed to invasions by 
Indians, Mexicans, both hostile, and was therefore fortified and garri- 
soned by sixteen forts and posts of all arms, at varying distances from 
each other, and as far as six hundred and seventy-five miles from San 
Antonio, their head-quarters, from which they were all supplied, and 
through which, going or coming, they were all compelled to march. 
You shall presently see when conspiracy and treason got into their work, 
how they were helped along, by all those conditions. But let us — once for 
all — insert here a nota bene about that ugly word — " Treason." Our cau- 
tion is this : On the one hand, let us not be impelled by passion into 
passionate or figurative epithets. And on the other, let us not be de- 
terred by fear, or pity, or policy, from calling things by their right names, 
in strictest logic and strictest law. As for my single self (absolutely 
unrestrained by partisan, or sectional predilections, or prejudices of any 
kind or degree, and swayed no more from the one fixed, narrow. Polar 
line of utterly impartial history, than every man must be, whose heart- 
beats are for his whole country alone), as for my single self, I must avow 
these truths— viz.: That, so far, from considering the great body of the 
Southern people, who were actually engaged, whether civilly or militar- 
ily, in that dreadful War of Rebellion as traitors, I do deem them, in the 
Court of Morals, to have been upon just as high and pure a plane as 
we were. They acted upon their own convictions of right, under their 
own educations, and as environed by their own peculiar and irremova- 
ble circumstances of conditions, etc. Moreover, after the War began 
— and it was* begun with most Satanic cunning, for the express purpose 



74 



— 5- 

of creating that very necessity, — these people, as individuals and fami- 
lies, and as a section, were under the dire necessity of sustaining their 
government de facto, and of resisting ours and their government de jure . 
So mingled a web is this which we call human life ! Nor could they of 
the South, nor you of the North, nor any other people of any part of 
this our mundane sphere, have acted differently. This question of guilt 
or innocence, therefore, in a Court of Morals, becomes for each individ- 
ual a purely personal matter. " What were the motives yN\\\z\\ governed 
his actions?" If these were honest and sincere, the issue is settled. 
The disunionest Rebel was just as good a /nan {not a citizen) as was 
the unionest Patriot. 

But for all this, on the other hand, we must not, in our gushes of 
benevolence, or of unselfishness, confound different things. In spite of 
all those general truths, there was before, and leading to, that Rebel- 
lion many instances of treason and traitors, pure and simple. That, 
compared to the vast numbers of the honestly deluded and of the iron- 
chained necessitous, these cases were very few, is most true. Still, the 
fact remains the same. In that vast political party, which agitated 
those dangerous questions that led to the Rebellion and its war ; among 
the many active spirits, who deliberately laid that train and fired the 
fuse of rebellion ; and, indeed, in the actual armies of battle and siege 
of the eventual Confederacy, there must have been, and there were al- 
most infinitely, varying degrees of personal innocence and guilt. And 
amongst them all, there were not a few actual tnala fide traitors. And of 
these treasons and traitors, I intend to talk awhile this evening, and 
very plainly, too. Since the year A. D. i860, I have, indeed, discarded 
all restraints, or darkening circumlocutions of speech, about our public 
affairs. 

Resuming our thread of unlucky conditions; in the third place, the 
Texans had much less of union sentiment in their biographies, as their 
State had much more of separateness in their geography, commerce, 
and history than had the citizens of the other States of the United 
States. The latter had never owed, owned, felt, nor imagined any 
other bonds than those of loyalty to the one grand "old flag of our 
fathers." But from their beginnings, under Austin in 1820, and Hous- 
ton in 1836, many of them had voluntarily expatriated themselves, or 
had been expatriated by stress of our pursuing writs of law, criminal 
and civil, to take and to profess a foreign citizenship. Indeed, in that 
critical period, from the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which be- 
gan the War, to the fire upon Fort Sumter, which was the War itself, 
the ties of 'legal obligation to the Union and the love for the Union 
were very feeble forces upon many, if not the most, of the leading men 
of Texas. 

Such, then, being the inducements and opportunities af Texans, as 



75 



— 6 — 



individuals and as a State, to embark into this new adventure and en- 
terprise of Secession and its War, let us now observe ; — Why and how 
they proceeded in it ? 

It is very natural, and, perhaps, therefore, a very common habitude 
of historians, to be looking very far around and very deeply down in 
their explorations for the causes of all great natural or world-wide 
events, whether of wars, migrations, revolutions, or reformations, and 
the like. And, in general, doubtless, great events do owe their origin 
and accomplishment to wide, and deep truths for their causes. But 
every general law, however great, must have its exceptions. And our 
Rebellion is in the category of the exceptions. The philosophy of his- 
tory hates dreadfully to admit that Alexander the Great died of bad 
whiskey ; that George Washington, accidentally escaping those famous 
point-blank bullets at Braddock's Defeat, and the multitudinous other 
hair-breadth escapes between Cambridge and Yorktown, died actually 
of a sore throat; that many a "tall admiral," of huge and glorious frames 
and huger and more glorious names — such as the "Royal Georges," 
the " Presidents," etc., etc., — have gone down to their inglorious graves 
in the ocean-valleys from such contemptible causes, as the tooth of a 
microscopic wormlet, or the careless heading of a little rivet. And 
then the philosophy of theology must also interpose with her invariable 
theories of special providence in grand designs, proportionate to grand 
effects. So the great dramatists, you remember, always invoked a God 
in every action (the Deus exmachina) — Silenus or Pan, for the trite and 
ludicrous, but Neptune, or Mars, or Jupiter, for the grand, the royal 
events ! Our theology, having but one God, may let the toothache or a 
ward-election pass, without the special agency of that " First great 
cause, least understood." But, for the grand epics of human life, such as 
the bullet of a Booth or a Guiteau, or the firing on Fort Sumter, or the 
defeat at Bulls' Run, (ever using its little self for the measure, and not 
remembering how infinitesimally atomic are our grandest events, or ac- 
cidents, compared to that one God,) — our philosophy of theology — feels 
bound to interpose its divine design and agency of special Providences. 
Nevertheless, my fellow-countrymen of all classes and sections — 
nevertheless, I fell bound to think, and to speak now, as always, these my 
fixed convictions — viz.: That it was not any wide and deep principle in 
human nature; that it was no broad statesmanship, not even broad sec- 
tional statesmanship, nor even the interests of slaveholding as a prop- 
erty, which devised, plotted, and finally accomplished that conspiracy, 
rebellion and war. They were the mere partisan, office-seeking politi- 
cians (the wormlets of our National dry-rot), in their contemptible 
scheme of selfish, sectional and "partisan" aggrandizements in mere 
office-holding, who contrived and did it all. That they used the other 
elements of sectional jealousy and slaveholder-pride to gain voices for 



76 



— 7 — 

their measures is very true. But it is a very certain and very wonder- 
ful truth, that their constituency in the Southern States was mainly ob- 
tained from the non-slaveholders, their "poor white trash," and from 
their horde of reckless political adventurers. As a class, the former 
were opposed to all revolutionary processes, as well in Mississippi as in 
Texas and everywhere else, except in South Carolina. In Mississippi, 
for example, the line between State and national sovereignties, sec- 
tional and national patriotism, as a preparation for this scheme, was 
most notably, if not first, drawn. It was in the great campaign just be- 
fore the Presidential election between Jefferson Davis and Henry S. 
Foote. These candidates, both Democrats, but wide apart as the poles, 
were great debaters. Amongst other questions which they discussed 
over the State, I remember was, in substance, this : To which author- 
ity, State or National, is the obligation of the 'citizen primarily due? 
Against which, primarily , can treason be committed?" Now, with such 
issues as these, so ventilated and enlightened, Foote obtained the votes 
of, I think, about seven-tenths of all the Slavocracy. Davis, with all 
his great natural powers and marvellous mental graces and accomplish- 
ments, represented, besides his politician class, all the "rag, tag and 
bobtail" of the regular, olden Democracy. 

There were in the Presidential campaign of i860, you remember, 
three sets of candidates ; and loud and frequent menaces of disunion, 
and preparations for disunion were made, by organizing and drilling 
military bodies, and by supplying them with arms and munitions of war. 
And these menaces, both of the talk and the print, and the preparations 
of conspiracy and treason were made before, and long months before 
that election. 

And now I aver, as my solemn belief, after careful and painful ob 
servation at the time and on the spot, that not one man can be now dis- 
covered on trustworthy testimony to have so talked or so conspired, who 
voted either for Bell and Everett, or for Douglass and Johnson. They 
were (those fire-eaters of that fearful campaign) all unanimously of one 
political party and ticket. And so the Rebellion was therefore plotted, 
and the war was initiated by "merest politicians in merest politics. Ac- 
cursed politics! and politicians!" This was my faith, published then 
and there, in November, i860. And it was and is the truth. 

I went to Texas as an explorer for favoring climate and occupation 
to cure a bronchial affection, I think, in the winter or spring of 1858, 
I was delighted, if not enchanted, with my visit, in all things save one. 
I saw, or thought I saw, a painful apathy, and in a few instances, an 
open hatred towards the Union. I removed to Texas in 1859, ^^''^^ "^Y 
stallions, as a horse-breeder. At Galveston, Indianola, Corpus Christi, 
Victoria, and Goliad, where I was cormorant awhile, I not only thought 
I saw, but as the campaign afterwards waxed warmer, I did see and 



77 



hear not only convincing proofs of that apathy and hatred toward the 
Union, but the evident tracks of an active conspiracy leading toward 
open rebellion. I discovered these movements in the organization and 
action of a treasonable association. I repeat the word "treasonable," 
with its fit adjectives, pure and simple, logical and legal, deliberate and 
of malice prepense ! This body was the "Knights of the Golden Cir- 
cle," commonly known by their initials of " K. G. C's." 

Now, why did I not at once sell or give away my horse-menada, 
and fly from such a people and such dangers ? I can not tell. I think 
I must have been very much of an idiot for not fleeing, as Lot fled from 
Sodom. I had, by strange chance, a splendid opportunity for with- 
drawing from such a commitment of my future fortunes. As it concerns 
my narrative, at least, so far as to not only to indicate my then political 
status and its opportunities for observing, but especially my personal 
relations and predilections toward the leaders of that great party, and 
the consequent impartiality of this my testimony, I will state it. 

It was at Goliad, shortly after my arrival in Texas, that I received, 
through Hon. Joseph Holt, Postmaster-General, President Buchanan's 
ofi'er to me, of the office of Assistant Secretary of State, vice Appleton, 
who had been appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to Russia ; a:nd with 
it came a curious intimation in the Secretary's private letter, that this 
office was a more henorable one than it might seem, because of the age 
and infirmities of the Secretary of State, Hon. Lewis Cass. He proved 
himself in the event to be infirm only in and toward treason. He was 
as true a Union Patriot as ever lived in all these troublous times and 
scenes — clarum et venerabile nonienl 

But why I did not snatch at this, such a chance to grasp honors 
and to escape privations, dangers, shame, perhaps death, I can not ex- 
plain. I am hopeful. Did I hope for success to the Union cause, even 
in Texas ? I am not (I flatter myself) given to panics overmuch. Did 
I despise the dangers from these talks, and newspaper menaces and 
base obvious conspiracies? I was under personal obligation, or in most 
friendly relations, to the President, to General Cass, to Colonel Holt, to 
John B. Floyd, to John C. Breckenridge, and sundry others of both 
sections of the dominant party ; and I was quite banished from that 
great body of Whigs, which had organized themselves as the Republi- 
can party. I was, nevertheless, very decidedly in favor of the defeat of 
the Regular, or Breckinridge-Democrats and in favor of (I can not 
say hopeful of) the success of Bell and Everett, or in lieu of that 
ticket, of Douglass and Johnson. Although retired from open, and 
much more from active, politics, was I, nevertheless, restrained by my 
conscious fear that I could not act honestly in harmony with Mr. Buch- 
anan's administration ? These speculations are now vain, if not super- 
fluous. I can not now explain my motives. It is only necessary to add 



— 9 — 

that, by return mail, I respectfully declined this high honor, and there- 
upon William H. Tresholm was duly appointed in my stead. 

What the differences to the Union and to Disunion causes, respec- 
tively, were or would have been, in case I had become the incum- 
bent of this office, instead of this South Carolina Democrat, it may 
be difficult to fix. He was, by the way, probably the most accom- 
plished scholar in the law of nations, who ever held that or even the 
chief office of the Department. But as he had been for, at least a de- 
cade before, a most active and virulent plotter for Secession, and was 
reasonably beheved to have been, together with Judge John A. Camp- 
bell, of Alabama, a go-between of Floyd and the open seceders, it is 
safe enough to say, that in my case. General Cass and the Union cause 
would have been spared that treacherous work by their humble servant. 

On my arrival at Cincinnati, I found another letter from Colonel 
Holt, to my brother Larz, urging him to press my acceptance and en- 
closing another tender of this office. But I again refused it. On what 
little things, as causes, do hang the biggest consequences ? Who can 
now say, that if this persistent, perhaps, foolish rejection of this import- 
ant office, by an unimportant man, had been accepted, that Fort Sum- 
ter would have ever become historical ? It is utterly impossible to be- 
lieve that ever I could have been other than a zealot for the Union in 
that or any other office or position. For Washington's Farewell Ad- 
dress and Jackson's Proclamation were and are to me my law and my 
religion. What "Coke upon Littleton was to the old lawyer; what 
Paul's epistles to the Hebrews and Romans are to the Calvinists ; were 
and are these revered documents to my political faith ! Any of you 
who know me, know how absurd it is to expect me to keep silent or still 
about any of my passions. And this Union-love was and is to me the 
most ruling passions of my life. Now, then, do any of you believe, 
with such experience of the Anderson-intractibility in the Disunion 
lines in which Floyd, as Secretary of War, was then seduously plow- 
ing, that he would have given the order (asked by General Scott) 
consigning my brother to the command of Charleston Harbor.'' I must 
say I do not. Dear, beloved, honored Robert ! I claim nothing what- 
ever of any influences over his principles or his conduct in Sumter 
or elsewhere; and, without mock modesty, I confess that he was as 
much my superior, by nature and in culture, as he was as a patriot sol- 
dier, gentleman and Christian. In all these characteristics, he excelled 
me (myself being the judge) as much as one brother can well surpass 
another who is not a disgrace to their family. Nevertheless, I do be- 
lieve (such are the accidents of this our life ! ) if I had accepted this 
office, that Major Anderson would never have been assigned to Fort 
Moultrie by that Secretary of War, John B. Floyd. The fact is, that 
this functionary made the mistake of simply assuming, without inquiry 



78 



79 



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or personal knowledge of him, that my brother, like so many Southern 
officers, wQuld readily desert the old flag, either from sectional and par- 
tisan zeal, or personal corruptness. That another SouHiern officer would 
have been sent there by Floyd is most certain ; and that such other 
Southern sympathizer (for, let us have no nonsense about it, my 
brother did, most tenderly, sympathize, as I did, with the Southern peo- 
ple, especially with their women and children) ; that this other Southern 
officer would have behaved in that post of duty, as he did, any of you 
may believe, if you can. Again I simply insist, I can not. To return at 
last from this digression. 

In the spring or summer of 1859, '^^e gubernatorial election was be- 
ginning to stir the Texan mind. The Democratic Convention, early in 
1859, "nominated a State ticket, pledged to favor the reopening of the 
African Slave Trade," which was, as Mr. Greeley says, "a well-under- 
stood shibboleth of the South-western plotters of Disunion ;" and here 
let me say, that this most infamous of all trades or institutions of earth 
or hell was then actually reopened in Texas ! At least, two ship-loads 
of manacled slaves, direct from Africa, were landed — the one near Gal- 
veston and the other near Indianola — and hundreds of these poor jab- 
bering barbarians were, then and thereupon, sold and distributed over 
the State. Nor was all this done under a curtain. The whole State 
knew it, and, doubtless, our Cabinet at Washington knew it as well as 
did all we Texans. 

Governor Runnells, who had defeated General Houston before, was 
the candidate for reelection on this platform. Mr. Greeley thinks that 
the " leading politicians had herein shown the cloven-foot too soon." 
And so, in one respect, they had ; but in another, and that the essential, 
great thing of the general Disunion movement, their action was in very 
good season for it and them. 

For instance ; I can not say that either this resolution for reopening 
the slave trade, or its actual reopening and operation, was the cause of 
the defeat of the Breckinridge or Southern party. I do not think it was 
the cause, or even much contributed to that result. It is very true that 
there was much hot indignation about it. I know, for example, that for 
one fanatic (/a«itics, they pronounced the word there), I quarreled an- 
grily with my nearest neighbor and one of my best friends on this sub- 
ject. He was an Irish gentleman, who, with his brother, had been many 
years mining silver at Guanaxuato in Mexico. He had never owned 
a slave in his life, unless you may so term his peons. But in the few 
months he had lived in Texas, he had become, like most of his country- 
men, an earnest Southern Rights and pro-slavery man. 

I had with two other fanatics — fools, let us now say — tried to 
get up a company oi new Texas rangers, to march down to the nearest 
slave-ship, to cut the throat of every pirate aboard, to scuttle their ship. 



; \ 



and so to set all their Ebon-prisoners free. Sublime philanthropy ? 
If victorious, what next? Where to go? What to do? What to 
eat? Their first dinner? Whence? What? Whom? etc., etc. 
These were questionings which our emotional indignation scorned 
to ask ! But when I proposed my raid to my friend and neigh- 
bor, Mr. Meade, and when he swore (his face all flushed with the 
richest of pinks, and, in brogue — tones more fluent and musical than 
General Scott's poetic Irish votes) that he would raise a " regiment of 
the rea/ Texas rangers to follow and thrash us on the way" — then my 
reasoning powers suddenly returned and my indignation quietly gushed 
itself out into more regular and milder pulsations. For I saw he was in 
earnest, and I knew he would do it ! 

The reason why that party was defeated at the polls was this merely, 
viz : The great body of the people, especially the leading slaveholders 
and leading business men, were f/ien most sound in their patriotism, 
and were much alarmed and indignant at this premeditated action of 
the reigning party. And it was only premature, because the great 
agency in that movement, and party of disunion, the " K. G. C's," did, 
in truth, attain to the depth of prostituting a majority of the Texas 
people to their disunion scheme. But they did acquire sufficient 
numbers with their organized action and its swift successes, to push the 
unconscious great majority over that precipice. You shall better under- 
stand this case as we proceed in the narrative. 

The campaign waxed hot. For Sam. Houston — he of San Jacinto — 
had entered the lists independently, and flung down his gage of battle, 
— " the Union and the constitution forever." I attended several of his 
meetings, and Imust say, that though I have heard many much greater 
orators, I never did hear one so effective in a cause and before audien- 
ces like his, in all my life. And whether, in or after the exposition of 
his doctrine ("the doctrines of the fathers," he would always say,) it 
became in place to mention the name of a cotemporary and adverse 
actor in this great drama, for comparison or contrast, he would shout it 
right out, in most derisive scorn of epithet or tone, generally ludicrous 
or viturperative. For instance, after a portrait of Jefferson or Jackson, 
particularly of Jackson, he would say something of this import and 
style, viz.: "Now here gets up this Wig-fall, a drunken blather-skite 
from South Carolina, to teach us the constitution and the morals of pat- 
riotism ; " or, again, "This Kite, or Keit, or Kit, or whatever his name 
is ; " or, "This fellow with a tongue, this murderer, this assassin of his 
poor old mother's honest, helpless husband, this gallows bird, this 
Yancy," is another professor of law and order and constitutional gov- 
ernment and decency," and so on for the rest of the disunion leaders, 
whenever their names emerged or could be dragged to the surface of 
discussion. Yet, of this man it pleases Mr. Greeley to say, in history : 



8" 



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"Had he evinced either principle or courage, General Houston was thus 
in a position to thwart the Texan conspiracy at the outset." But allow 
me to say (with many more and better chances for observation than 
Mr. Greeley had) : First. That he was in no such position. Second. 
That a truer Union man did not then breathe our vital air than Sam. 
Houston. Third. And as for courage (though I am no believer in the 
frequent assertion that any sane mind ever existed without fear), yet 
I do say : that of all men I ever saw encompassed by dangers and 
frightful enemies, Sam. Houston was, perhaps, the nearest to being that 
man " who knows not fear." And as to the nature or degrees of those 
dangers and enemies, it must not be forgotten, amongst other and like 
things, that the Hon. Alfred Iverson, Senator of Georgia, was thus 
speaking of Governor Houston and of these very scenes, when he said : 
" and if he will not yield to that public sentitnent, some Texan Brutus 
tnay arise to rid his country of this old, hoary-headed traitor. (Great 
"sensation.") Moreover, I aver that he did all that could possibly 
have been done for our and his great cause. For he had extraor- 
dinary qualities, m addition to great zeal, great courage, and a fine 
intellect in general for revolutionary times, and scenes, and actions. 
He was as cunning as a fox, and as cool and self-possessed as a 
white marble statue of Cato. That in the result, his patriotism, courage, 
and wonderful address in revolutions were all ^brought to naught by 
overwhelming and various adverse influences ; that he sank under the 
mortification of seeing his worst enemies and the enemies of the Union 
he so loved "flourish in bloody treason over us ;" that he was swiftly 
and ignominiously and most lawlessly deposed from his office in old 
age and poverty, and (keenest pang of all) that, too, in the twofold 
shame of an unjust, cruel ingratitude from both the traitors and the pat-, 
riots : that he went out of life in the consciousness that he had been 
cheated out of his true place in history ; that he suffered the more bitter 
grief to see his own and only sons, and the Benjamin of his old age, 
too, with all the other bright youth of the country, enlisted under the 
banners of rebellion, parental and national — all these sad results are 
undeniable. Still, and nevertheless, all these disasters followed from 
no fault of his, either in design or even of execution. 

Let us again understand each other here. I admire Horace Greeley 
as much as any of you. At least, I consider him to be far the greatest 
man of his great class in American history — the press gang. A close 
observer, a most experienced editor and politician, an indefatigable 
worker, with extraordinary memory, an admirable writer, quick in his 
perceptions, rather deep in his observations and reflections, he was, 
withall, as bold a man to censure, and as just, and honest, and kindly a 
man to retract as ever in troublous times edited a political paper or 
wrote a history of contemporary events and actors. Have I praised 



82 



— 13 — 

him enough to please you and to qualify myself for this witness-stand ? 
No ? Then I add : that I still think it a great calamity that he, just he, 
Horace Greeley, was not elected our President in 1872. I was in that 
canvas, exactly where my saying or doing or writing amounted to just 
nothing at all. For what is the sense or use of trying to row up the 
chute of Niagara Falls in a birch bark canoe, with a feather for a pad- 
dle ? But, all the rowing I did at that election was for Horace Greeley 
as our President. Notwithstanding these estimates, dispositions, and 
commitments toward Horace Greeley, 1 must still be allowed to think 
and say that he made many great mistakes. This was one of them. 
His "On to Richmond" tocsin was another, and his comparison of 
Winfield Scott to David E. Twigs was the worst of all. 

At this election, August, 1859, "in by far the largest vote ever yet 
polled in the State" (you see how we Texans were aroused by this life 
and death issue for the Union of our fathers), Houston, the indepen- 
dent, beat the secessionist Runnels by a majority of 8,670 'votes. Let 
it be here noted, however, that this victory for the Union cause by no 
means secured the official organism of the State government to our 
uses. On the contrary, that remained pretty much wholly in the dis- 
union interest. And the majority in each branch of the legislature was 
adverse to the new Governor and to the old Union. And just here 
begins the error of Mr. Greeley and the other Union historians who 
follow him, viz : That Governor Houston's election gave him the power 
to suppress or circumvent this plotting treason. 

I shall give few details in party events of that dreary, dreary summer 
of i860. It was to me the very gloomiest, most wretched year of all my 
life. No time of the actual war — not even that blackest year of all the 
years of human history — from the middle of 1862 to the middle of 1863, 
from our retreat from the peninsula to our victory at Gettysburg, and to 
our capture of Vicksburg, when the scales hung so doubtfully, but ever 
inclining against the success of the Union cause, was so black to me as 
was that year. For, in it, I saw only the busy preparations for public 
treason, tyranny, and war on the one hand, and the sleeping and inno- 
cent unconsciousness of patriotism, liberty, and peace on the other; and 
then, in the depths of my despair, was ever imagining the result of a 
conflict so unequal. If, my friends, ladies and gentlemen, you can, 
at this late day, bring yourselves into a sympathetic realization of the 
probability — be the coolly reasonable probability — of the dangers of mur- 
ders, arsons, and worse crimes, to which all our countrywomen — those 
refined, pure, noble southern women — and all their children were to be 
exposed, with their fathers, husbands, brothers, and lovers all " absent in 
the wars," and no males around or near them, except the semi-savage, 
the semi-brutal slaves, whom we had ever so long, so unjustly, so 
cruelly wronged, you will the better comprehend my state of mind in 



83 



— 14 — 



Texas and my brother's in Fort Sumter. Oh ! my countrymen, was 
there ever a National delusion so base as to hazard such peril, or ever, 
ever in all history such meekness and mercy and forbearance shown on 
earth as was in the event exhibited by these African slaves throughout 
that whole war ? May God spare me the curse of surviving to the endur- 
ance, again, of such days of corroding cares, such long, long nights of 
sleepless horrors as made up that awful twelve months between our 
Texas election-victory of 1859 ^"^ the outbreak of the Rebellion, on 
the 24th of November, i860. 

I am poor at philosophising at best, and what were the further 
causes of this difference in my own unhappiness, within the so different 
periods, I am as unable to guess as any one of you. Whether it was 
because the rebellion and the war had then and there become to me 
(being now behind their scenes) as much certainties as if I had seen 
them going on — whether it was that oyr vague imagining-j of grief to 
come are often more horrific than what they shall be when experienced 
in action — whether it was because, when the explosion actually burst, I 
(a mere witness and speculator before), plunged into the struggle as 
soon and as far as I could, and, with comrades like you, God bless them, 
became a positive actor in the scenes of counter-conspiracy and war ; 
and so, being pre-occupied in all my thinkings, doings, and sympa- 
thizings in each present scene or act as it arose, had no time to be nour- 
ishing fears or dreams about the general future, or whether it was 
each or any of these speculative causes, or still some others, which 
caused "this dififerAce to me," I can not decide. But of this truth be 
assured: Those parts of 1859-60, of somewhat more than a year, 
although passed in the midst of a climate, avocation and society 
otherwise the most delightful of all my experience, was to me by 
far the most unhappy of any other equal period of my existence. 
I think I will not exaggerate if 1 superadd that this period had, within 
its brief limits, more of real misery than all my other life besides. 

Upon the election of Mr. Lincoln, events — positive events — emerged 
into public view most swiftly and portentously. To us, at San Antonio 
(remember, it was the head-quarters of our army department), the first 
significant event was a call, published the day after the news of "Lin- 
coln's election," for a meeting of the Breckenridge and Lane voters on 
the 24th' day of November, at the Alamo, in San Antonio, to take action 
for the secession of the State. Within a few days, perhaps, in order to 
implicate others in this conspiracy, a new hand-bill was issued, addressed 
to rt// the citizens of Behar county, without regard to party. Yo<I*must 
now learn how I, for one, became thus implicated in that celebrated 
first movement of secession. On the morning of that 24th I rode into 
town, upon some personal business, and, as usual I went to the store of 
my friend, Mr. Caldwell, at the time and ever before a firm and zealous 



,§4 



— 15 — 



unionist. He, with other by-standers (the whole town was astir in pubhc 
passion), asked me at once if I did not intend to come in, to speak at 
this meeting ? Having only seen the first or Breckenridge hand-bill, I 
replied somewhat thus : " I am, my friends, like the 'pretty fair maid,' 
of the old song. 'Nobody asked you, sir,' she said. 'The invitation is to 
the Breckenridge Democrats, and inasmuch as I have never yet run 
with //;a/ crowd, I must consider myself ' left out in the cold ' from that 
delightful 'tea-party.' " Whereupon my friend Caldwell, or else Presly 
Edwards, produced the amended hand-bill, and at the same time 
reminded me that, although [ had repeatedly refused to speak in either 
of the preceding campaigns, yet I had as often promised, that if after 
the election, any movement toward disunion should be made, I would 
be, if alive, with the foremost in space and the latest in time, ever with 
my Union comrades in weal and woe, life or death. And, well remem- 
bering these solemn pledges, I, therefor,e agreed to stay for that historic 
Alamo meeting. 

It was the design and under the management of the K. G. C, and 
its intencfed proceedings were perhaps the most "cut and dried affair" 
ever known amongst the shams of politics. The Rev. Dr. Boring, 
a celebrated and very able divine of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, was to open the services by a wise, sober, and pious 
argument of the questions, constitutional, political and military. Col- 
onel Wilcox, an ex-member of Congress from Mississippi, and 
soon a candidate for the same office in the new Confederacy, and 
an eloquent stumper, was to follow with the usull fire-eating exhor- 
tations, threats, and promises. Then a Mr. Upson, a San Antonio 
lawyer, from Buffalo, N. Y., was to conclude the grand first act of the 
dread drama, by "out-heroding Herod" in Southern pro-slavery gushes, 
as was so usual, wherever, as too often, a Yankee did southernize him- 
self in politics. As for our counterplot, it was agreed amongst us that 
I was to be called for immediately after Dr. Boring, "to speak for the 
Union." In the respective calls which ensued, I must say I thought my 
name decidedly in the minority of their most "sweet voices." But, 
feeling very sure that this was the very niche (to borrow Mr. Lincoln's 
figure) for me to fill at that time and place, I walked as steadily up the 
ladder as if it were my sole meeting. Of the speech itself, I shall now 
make but these comments — viz.: That I would not have been permitted 
to speak at all, if I had not been known, or announced rather, in the 
cjamor against my appearance as being a Kentuckian ; that the speech 
was not worth so much as words spoken, as for the thing then and there 
acted ; that it was an act against the disunion and for the union of the 
States, very positively, openly, and right boldly, and most unexpectedly 
done ; that it has been more complimented for its boldness and truth 
than it deserves. For, although, I trust, I am not habitually addicted 



85 



— 16 — 



much to either prevarications or suppressions in my speeches, yet I did 
feel under the necessity of taking then and there certain common stand- 
points with my auditors not exactly suited to my own convictions, in or- 
der to gain from them that forbearance toward me which might induce 
them to listen further to my defense of the Union cause ; and, finally, I 
add, that the prefatory sentence in the pamphlet edition (published soon 
after by Colonel Joe Holt and others, at Washington City) is mislead- 
ing. Dr. Boring's speech, having been written out fully and read at the 
meeting, was published in the first number of the Weekly Herald after- 
ward. I was asked by the editor to write out mine, which was purely 
extemporaneous, for publication. This I did, -and it appeared, I be- 
lieve, in the succeeding number of that paper. There was no lapse of 
time, therefore, for me to forget my spoken words. Nor do I believe 
that there is essential error, and surely no improvement, in the printed 
speech. 

I tried to make it as true a report as V could, and I prepared it as 
soon as was possible. With these tedious remarks about a matter so 
immaterial, I proceed to make one fjuotation from that Alamo speech. 
It will prove that 1 then believed, and publicly assumed, that this whole 
movement was one of mere party politics. 

Here it is. In allusion to the exceptionable appearance and posi- 
tion of this most able and distinguished divine in politics, I exclaimed : 

" But now, alas ! we are calmly and deliberately assured from the 
pulpit of the law and gospel — by no frothy, shallow demagogue of poli- 
tics — accursed politics! — by the lips and tongue of a man really wise, 
pious, and honest, that this vast fabric has crumbled ; that 'the Union 
is already dissolved.' We are informed, as a fixed and certain fact of 
history, that our national destiny is fulfilled ; that, like dead leaves on 
the wind, our institutions have drifted away into the past forever ; and 
that we are not here assembled to consider of their further existence or 
perpetuity, but to divide their spoils and take administration of their 
effects. 

" Whilst we were so entertainhd with the vast and various thoughts, 
and feelings, and images of horror that trooped thronging through my 
brain and heart, thrilling me with chilliness from scalp to soles, there 
was always mingled one sad, yet dreadful, picture — the children of one 
loving mother — a mother hale and well, though not happy, with the 
bloom yet in her fair cheeks ; the love-light in her calm eyes ; a grey 
hair, only, here and there, silvering with a single thread her radiant 
lock ; God bless the mother that bore us ! and the daughters born of 
such a mother, circling in a conclave over a plot of matricide, and "the 
parting of her raiments amongst them!" And yet, in all this mingled 
tide of sudden and new emotions, whilst he so calmly spoke, there came 
to me no flush of fiery anger ; no choking from bursting indignation ; 



86 



I? — 



no throb for instant vengeance. A deep and bitter grief, a most melt- 
ing pity and sadness, filled me, until I thought I could weep — weep tears 
of blood \.o see such treason in such men." 

And again, in another branch of the topic, occurs this passage : 
"And is this forever to be so? Must the true, permanent and invaluable 
interests of the Southern people — their lands, their slaves, their prop- 
erty, personal and public, their peace, their patriotism, all, all — be 
forever thus made a sacrifice to 7)icre politicians, for the sole benefit of 
merest politicians.'' Will our Southern statesmen (for we have yet a 
few statesmen left us) thus always continue to devote all their faculties 
and energies to the single end of propagating the faith of slavery for 
xX.'a ^\^\x^\o\\ 2i% ?>. political institution , ?i.wdi in soils and climates, where 
neither ' King Cotton' nor 'Queen Sugar ' can ever reign or reside ? ' 

Of the scene which followed, (cjuite a riot, with every probability of 
a most bloody result, and which would have been the first blood of the 
civil war — desiring to make this narrative as little personal and as much 
for public history as I well can) I s^iall say but little. The excitement 
arose from my own heedless, wild anger and attempt to redress myself 
for a supposed insult to me by Colonel Wilcox, who replied to me. And 
but for the brave and disinterested violent interference of Mr. Story, 
the head of the K. G. C's., in actually dragging me out of a fight, doubt- 
less there would have been, from this my folly, much bloodshed and 
many deaths at that second tragedy of the Alamo. Whether his con- 
duct on this occasion was impelled by a calm forethought, that " the 
time was not yet," or whether he had a half romantic sympathy for a 
brother Kentuckian, as he said, "born, too, in Anderson County," I can 
not say. But his course seemed always to me most brave and generous. 
For his K. G. C's., on the ground, appeared to me the majority. They 
wore their badges. They were all doubly armed, and the Unionists, so 
far as I know, were all unarmed. The massacre would have been all 
one-sided, and of us ; but the appearances were in part deceptive. 
This riot brought the Union men to the front. They were thus proved 
to be the majority, if not the boldest party. They took possession of 
the stand. They squelched Herod Upson's speech. They compelled 
their hired band to follow our mob around town, " to the wee short 
hours ayont the Twal," tooting, and thumping, and clanging, "The 
Star Spangled Banner,'' "Hail Columbia," and "Yankee Doodle," in- 
stead of their former rebel tunes of "Dixie" and the rest. And so 
passed away this first great movement in Secession — a flat fail- 
ure. It is noteworthy that at the Secession election, long after, San 
Antonio, the head-quarters of the K. G. C's., gave a majority against it. 
Was our victory at the Alamo the cause, or the effect of this choice of 
her people. Who knows ? 

The elation of the Unionists, and the depression of the Disunionists, 



81 



— i8- 



in and around this the head-quarters of our army, and of the army of the 
" Knights of the Golden Circle," were soon changed into a complete re- 
versal. Inasmuch as this secret order exercised in Texas a controlling, 
nay, a decisive, influence, in starting the great conspiracy, and as, in 
my calm judgment, Texas was so potential, if not supreme, in maturing 
it, it becomes necessary to understand something more of it — its origin, 
purposes, doings, and results than is usually known. The " Knights of 
the Golden Circle, or " K. G. C's.," were, then, a military secret order. 
Their fundamental principles were, or by those who best knew about 
them, alleged to be these and such as these — viz.: To preserve and 
extend American slavery ; that Republicanism had, in its experiment, 
proved a failure ; that a legalized oligarchy, or, perhaps, a monarchy, 
with hereditary-titled orders, were the only class of institutions suited to 
the wants of the slave-states, and which were practicable ; that the im- 
mediate and violent dissolution of the present Union and Government 
was practicable and indispensable ; that the pending Presidential cam- 
paign, with its obvious results in the Black Republican victory, should 
be in due time made the pretext, or false pretense, with the inflamed 
Southerners in the place of its real cause, which was the slipping from 
their grasp of their olden supremacy in politics ; that to these ends the 
organization of these politics was indispensable ; that it should be secret, 
that it should be sworn, military in its forms and spirit, and most sum- 
mary, dangerous, and pitiless in all its actions. 

Accordingly, instructed by^^the amazing, and at that time mysteriousi 
success of the " Know- Nothings,'' just before, in 1856, etc. — this organ- 
ization, like that, but with wide difl"erences, by the close of 1859, ^^^ ^^' 
tained to such form, numbers, and spirit as to betoken somewhat of its 
deeds of manhood in i860 and the spring of 1861. Then, under the 
full blazes of Fort Sumter and the Southern Confederacy, and of the 
stirring events of their war, "it paled its ineffectual fires into the dark- 
ness of that oblivion and obloquy, under which it now infamously lies, 
even in the public opinion of the Rebellion which it engendered, and 
to which it alone imparted its first great success. Originally, probably 
in 1857 or 1858, this association had been gotten up for fillibustering ; 
that is, for piracy and robbery purposes. But for some unknown causes, 
it had fallen through, leaving several wandering knights along the bor- 
ders with nothing to lose and everything to gain by a revolution. 
Among these, the two vagabonds, Geo. W. Bickley and his nephew, 
were employed to travel over the State and organize 'Castles,' receiving 
the initiation fees (^i by each knight) as their compensation." 1 partly 
quote the above from a cotemporary pamphlet of James P. Newcomb, 
in San Antonio, as true a patriot and as truthful and brave a man as 
ever lived, in my opinion and belief. 

The degrees were five in number, at a cost of thirty dollars. The 



88 



19 



f 



8 



funds were placed in the hands of a treasurer, and applied under the 
direction of a select committee to the purchase of arms, accoutrements, 
and ammunition. *' It was estimated by competent authority," says 
Major I. T. Sprague, U. S. A.; and I, as an eye-witness in a certain 
sense, must add my poor testimony of hearsay, actual observation, and 
fcelief to his authority, " that eight thousand men could be brought into 
the field, at four days' notice, well equipped." Their officers were Gen- 
erals, Colonels, Majors, and Captains. Their discipline stricter than 
that of regular armies. 

" In every county there was a place of assemblage, called the 'Cas- 
tle,' at which reports were made in regard to individuals, their conduct 
and opinions, and transmitted for final action and adjudication to their 
head-quarters in San Antonio." 

Here you have, in substance, and with more accuracy than is usual 
in such cases, a presentation of that once so formidable, now so con- 
temptible, fellowship of evil, the " Knights of the Golden Circle.'' It 
was to this band of mostly mere villainous desperadoes that the success 
of rebellion in Texas was mainly due — indeed, it may be said wholly 
due, unless we must except, as another great coadjutant influence to the 
same end — in another association of a widely different character. This 
was the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. This church had, as you 
may recollect, its origin in a schism based solely in pro-slavery zeal. 

I give you my recollection of the case. Bishop James O. Andrews, 
of Georgia, married a widow owning, perhaps, thirty or forty slaves- 
Some of the old-time Methodists of his own State took exception to this 
act as being in violation of the fundamental and living law of the Book 
of Discipline of the church : that none of its ministers should hold 
slave property. The Bishop refused to quit preaching, or to give up his 
"vested rights." He said, besides, that they were his wife's slaves. His 
adversaries alleged that this was false pretense ; for, that slaves were 
chattels, and a marriage vested such property in the husband. More- 
over, that he was working them and receiving the wages of sin, and 
that Wesley, their great founder, had not only denounced slavery as a 
sin, but as the "sum of all Ttl/ainies." The disputation waxed wider and 
hotter. Mr. Calhoun entered into this arena of theological controversy. 
He decided that Bishop Andrews was manifestly in the right. But the 
primitive Methodists impudently rejected this arbitrament, and pushed 
up their litigation, conference after conference, until finally, in the an- 
nual conference of 1844, at Buffalo, N. Y., I think, by a decisive major- 
ity in a joint resolution, it was adjudged by this highest possible tri- 
bunal, under God, that M.&\hod\si preachers could not and should not be 
slaveholders. Whereupon, immediately ensued the first experiment of 
Secession; and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, became an or- 
ganized, separated religious body, and a vast power for evil, as well as 



89 



for good, in our country. In Texas, certainly, and I believe throughout 
the Southern States, it was almost unanimous for a dissolution of the 
Union. Withlmuch careful and painful scrutiny and observation, I, at 
least, never heard of but one (his name was Henry Pirtle), who was op- 
posed to Secession. Mr. Calhoun, who was never a secessionist, but 
only a nullifier in our constitutional issue, applauded this Secession, 
upon the ground of the moral and legal rights of slaveholding, pure and 
simple. But modern casuistry has invented a purely technical justifica- 
tion for this running a surveyor's line— Mason'^s and Dixon's — through 
the Church of Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven. With eyes and 
hands uplifted in holiest horror, touched with a little human mock indig- 
nation, they now exclaim : "It was done by a joint revolution, sir." 
The informality of the proceeding has, at last, become more attrocious 
than the substantive offense. 

Is it not funny that this same section, under the special leadership 
of that same John C. Calhoun, Secretary of State under John " Tyler 
too" — strictest constructionists all — io default of the numbers in Con- 
gress for a constitutional mode, by treaty, or by statutory enactment, 
actually annexed this same Texas, by a "join^ resolution only?" And 
some of us outside sinners might add, if it were not a matter too grave 
for laughter — indeed, " too deep.for tears ;" — is it not funnier still that, 
after every other class of our fellow-citizens in business, society, and 
politics have profusely hugged and kissed each other, " across the 
bloody chasm ;" have, in truth, filled it up and covered it over with fresh- 
est earth, and greenest sod, and brightest flowers ; that two churches, 
the largest and most influential of all the land, do, yet, stoutly maintain, 
on purely technical grounds (their basis of slaveholding all vanished !), 
their eternal Mason and Dixon's line between the saints ? And a third 
church of the meek and lowly Jesus ("Peace on earth and good will to 
man," you know !), and next only in influence to these two leading 
Protestant bodies, even at this late day, refuses to give up their absurd 
prayers for "our rulers," or that foundation-stone of slavery and rebel- 
lion, the "resolutions of '78," and to acknowledge, in their " Book of 
Common Prayer," the nationahty of our government. As Shakespeare 
wrote: "How these Christians do hate each otJierT" And oh ! what 
would Bob Ingersoll say of Christianity, if he only knew of these spe- 
cimens of odium theologicmn, or brotherly love ? So potent, far-reach- 
ing and enduring are these religious hatreds — worse even than -more 
natural sin ! 

^ This church, then composed of as good men and women, and as 
good Christians as in any in the Nation, were as solid a phalanx, in that 
movement for disunion, as were the Knights of the Golden Circle, which 
was, in general, as bad a band of men as ever confederated for robbery, pi- 
racy, murder, and, eventually, for treason. Moreover, that church was the 



90 



only numerous, honest, intluential class of men in Texas, which did 
favor secession. And, on account of that general good character, with 
their sincere zeal in this cause, they were, alas ! the m^re fatal to our 
cause. These were the two agencies which whirled Texas into rebellion . 
Without the K. G. C's., both in conspiracy and waged war, no move- 
ment could have been made against a Union-State executive for dis- 
union. And, without the votes and zealous co-operation of the Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church, Sout/i, in those sham elections, no approach to a 
majority, either for the convention, or for secession, could have been 
procured. 

No great public agitation followed the news of Mr. Lincoln's 
election, nor the local and temporary excitement at the Alamo meeting. 
The feelings of our people were adversely, and somewhat passionately, 
stirred by the secession of South Carolina, December 20th, and by the 
removal of the garrison from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, with its sud- 
den interruption of the treaty, "in greviio legis," between that most 
supreme sovereignty and the "Washington City Agency," miscalled a 
Nation ; and which was then represented by President Buchanan and 
his Cabinet, the leader in which was John B. Floyd. Still, in the main, 
by the close of the year i860, on the surface, Texas seemed to be rather 
pacific, calm, and idle. She seemed, and her people zuere so. But be- 
low the surface, the K. G. C's. were anything else than idle, or calm, or 
pacific. Constant vigilance, vigorous organization and action, with busi- 
est and promptest preparations for war, must have been going on below. 

In this state of affairs, there appeared on the stage of action a new 
and most unexpected actor. This was Major-General David E. Twiggs. 
He was by no means unknown to us Texans of either party. On the 
contrary, we, each of us, thought we knew and understood him w&ll. 
What the disunion party thought and felt about this event, can not be 
guessed. The Union party were in much doubt. A few, if not confi- 
dent, were, at least, hopeful. And so, for the most part, was I. Never- 
theless, I well remember to have had some scruples in the case. The 
caution of the Queen to Hamlet, about his " player-queen." " The 
lady doth protest too much, methinks." For I had heard General 
Twiggs speak, over and over again, of his own part in squelching the 
rebellion of South Carolina at Charleston, in 1832 (where, by the way, 
strangely enough, there was also under General Scott, one Captain 
Robert Anderson, and his Lieutenant W. T.' Sherman of company K- 
Third Artillery, U. S. Army), in almost these precise words, interlarded 
with most ludicrously-frequent and oddly-placed, and impious oaths: 
" There, sir, was a great man for you — of the olden times — that Andrew 
Jackson ! And he was the last of them too, sir. For God Almighty, 
sir, lost his moulds, sir, when Jackson died ! The assortment is closed 
out, sir." Remember, now, the single topic was on many different 



91 



occasions — this or these solely, viz.: State Nullification against the Uni- 
ted States authority ; Calhoun, with his ordifiances ?i^2L\nsi Jackson, with 
his Proclamation, and Force Bill, and his Army and Navy, under his 
own admired commander, General Scott, and he (Twiggs), a Georgia 
Union-Democrat, joyfully helping in the coercion of that most sovereign 
of all earthly sovereignties, South Carolina. Remember this well, I 
approved of every thought and feeling, uttered so often and so forcibly 
by General Twiggs. A blind adherent — yes, devotee of Henry Clay 
during his whole career, I had by this time gotten to take President 
Jackson's side in this affair. I regretted that Mr. Clay had offered his 
Olive-Branch, of the compromise bill, to afford a plausible loop-hole of 
retreat for the South Carolina fire-eaters, which they were but too willing, 
yes, too happy to slink into. "Fire-eating," when it was the Jackson- 
fire, was not so delicious a food for them, as it had proved so often 
before, and so much oftener long afterwards, when the Jackson-fire of 
Union-democracy was quenched, and he (heroic patriot and founder of 
democracy) was coldly, and stilly, and forever at rest in his hermitage- 
tomb. I thought it a great, a National, a world's misfortune and pity, 
that Mr. Clay had not permitted President Jackson to collect his duties 
and to ^'coerce' South Carolina, at the points of the Twiggs' sabers, and. 
at the mouths of the Anderson, Sherman, cannons; and that Charleston, 
if she whimpered, should not have been left a formeless mass of ashes in 
blood. I think and feel so yet. If you think me rash in reasoning, or 
cruel in feelings, or heedless in speech, do but recall the oceans of 
blood actually shed by that South Carolina, in the years i860 to 1864, 
not to specify other more precious treasures, our debased institutions, 
and lost morals ; and then compare this preventative with that proposed 
pool of bad blood in 1832. 

General Twiggs had been ever most courteous, even kindly to me, 
in all our many interviews. But many persons told me he was both 
cunning and insincere. And so, I somewhat feared, "he doth profess 
foo much.'" . His arrival at Indianola to reassume the command was, I 
believe, on the 5th of December, i860. As dates are of importance in 
this issue, I am compelled to ask your attention to them. 

In a lecture, " The treachery in Texas,'' read before the New York 
Historical Society on June 25th, 1861, and by it published among the 
documents for history, p. iii, etc., you may find this statement, viz.: 
" On the 5th of December, i860, Brevet Major-General David E. Twiggs, 
U. S. Army, arrived at Indianola, Texas, and by orders from Washing- 
ton, assumed command of this military district, known as the Depart- 
ment of Texas. For two years he had resided in New Orleans, La., 
retired from active military duties, owing to age and impaired health. 
For forty-eight years he had been in the service of the Federal Govern- 
ment. Nature had endowed him with a sagacious and active mind, far 



92 



23 — 



higher than with that element so essential to a soldier. Caution and 
self-preservation distinguished his career in the army," etc. Mr. 
Greeley, in his ''American conflict" and, so far as I know, all other 
annalists adopt these dates. 

But well-knowing, personally, that they were erroneous at least by 
one year, and believing them to be very significant, I applied through 
my nephew, General L. N. Anderson, to the War Department, for the 
exact dates of his service in Texas, and I have just received the follow- 
ing facts, viz.: "Twiggs was assigned to the command of the Department 
of Texas, March i8, 1857. From March 24 to June i, 1858, he was 
on leave of absence," (an interregnum of two months and six days). 

On December 7, 1859, he again went on leave of absence, trans- 
ferring the command to Lieutenant-Colonel Seawell ; and on reporting 
for duty, he was reassigned to the command, by special order No. '33, on 
November 7, i860. It was "under this order, that, on November 27, 
i86o (not December 5th), Twiggs resumed command." Here was an 
absence on leave for eleven months and twenty days. 

I made his acquaintance upon the passage from New Orleans, in 
the steamship, in 1858 (I believe), and knew him most pleasantly, as 
before said, aftei-wards at San Antonio, and up to his second leave of 
absence, December 7, 1859. He was, therefore, on December 5 (or 
else, November 27), i860, by no means a stranger to Texas or the 
army-officers, or the people, or their agitations, public opinions, party- 
spirit, or elections. On the contrary, from my knowledge of him and 
them, 1 fully believe that, save only a few professional politicians. Gen- 
eral Twiggs knew more of all than almost any man in Texas. Nor was 
his alleged retirement at New Orleans by any means a loss of opportu- 
nities to maintain his correspondences with, and knowledge- of, Texas 
men and things. Indeed, I should say that, except San Antonio alone. 
New Orleans was their very best point in the world for that advantage. 
It was our sole gate-way, going or coming, for communications with the 
outside world. 

That year"s leave occurred in this way. The General was really 
and seriously an invalid. Others, as usual, thought him, " Avialadc im- 
maginairc,'' I did not. I thought him, as it turned out, most seriously 
affected. His' complexion, and sundry other symptons, to me (no doctor 
though) betokened grave causes of apprehension. Amongst other indi- 
cations of a decHning old age, was a most romantic, and, to me, a most 
touching — almost womanly — affection for two of his officers, Van Dorn 
and Withers. He was assuredly unfit for any inportant business, and 
ought to have been retired for life, noletis aut voiens. It was certainly 
sometimes amusing, to us ot the laiety (to a surgeon it would have been 
funny) to hear the poor old invalid tatthng over his complaints, organs, 
functions, remedies, and the like charming topics of conversation. One 



93 



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of his conceits was, that his ^-'rt/Z-bladder had burst an opening into 
either his stomach or heart, I forget which, and his hope and beUef 
were, that if he could get to Paris, where those wondrous body-carpen- 
ters and cobblers lived (as we all once thought), he could be mended 
and patched up, in these organs, so as to have another lease of useful 
life. And this was his purpose, as he gave out often, in applying for 
tliis year's leave of absence. But, he never went to Paris. He stopped 
and passed his time far more pleasantly, and doubtless with quite as 
much benefit to his health, in the delightful home of his only daughter, 
the wife of Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel A. E. Myers, quartermaster^ 
stationed at New Orleans in 1858 and 1861, and until, very suddenly, he 
on February 5, 1861, resigned and took office straight-way, under the 
Confederacy. 

It will be remembered that Lieutenant-Colonel Robert E. Lee, First 
Cavalry U. S. Army, was in command of the Department of Texas, 
from February 20, i860, to the return of General Twiggs, say eleven 
months. It would be superfluous to say, how capable, diligent, faithful, 
and universally trusted an officer this gentleman was in all his duties, 
official, civic, social, domestic, and christian, during his whole — a 
model — life! I trust it will not be out of place, even here, for me to add 
my poor testimony. I knew him well, perhaps I might say, intimately, 
though his grave, cold dignity of bearing and the prudential reserve of 
his manners, rather chilled over-early, or over-much intimacy. And of 
all the officers or men whom I ever knew, he came (save one other 
alone) the nearest in likeness to that classic ideal. Chevalier Bayard — 
"Sans peur et sans reproche." And if these, our nxodern, commercial, 
mechanical, utilitarian ages, ever did develope a few of these types of 
male chivalric virtues, which we attribute solely to these "ages of faith,' 
Robert E. Lee was one of the highest and finest models. ^Imagine, then, 
our surprise — our amazement — when, without a soul expecting him 
(unless it were some traitor-soul), Triggs startled Texas by reassuming 
this command. IVhy did he, with more than promptitude, apply for 
orders on November 7, 1S60, the first day^fter the Presidential elec- 
tion ? Why, did his friends permit him to assume the duties of such a 
department, so onerous in the quietest of periods, and, now, upon the 
plain verge of overwhelming troubles and dangers ? No "man in Texas 
better forsaw that the result of the great and wide schism in the Demo- 
cratic party must be Lincoln's election. No one better comprehended, 
or had oftener foreseen, or more forcibly foretold the troubles and ruins 
to ensue. Was his health restored ? By no means ; it was painfully and 
visibly worse than when he left, in order to have his heroic operations 
of the new surgery performed. Was he himself more hopeful of hirti- 
self, or of the common weal? On the contrary, Jeremiah was a lively 
joker, to Twiggs in all questions pertaining to his own health and life, 



94 



'■S 



as well as to those of that government. Whose bread he had eaten, and 
whose best Bovnbon and richest wines he had been drinking for these 
fifty years, and until they had chronically turned sour on his stomach 
I am no doctor, nor surgeon, I repeat. I know almost nothing of the 
gall-bladder, nor even of gall in social or domestic life, nor even of 
wormwood since my infant life, but with some little experience in dys- 
pepsia, and not a few ruminations, thereon or therefrom, my own opin- 
ion was and is, that the aforesaid Bourbons and wines quite well ac- 
counted for the symptoms of this broken-down, worn-out valetudinarian 
And why then, was he so promptly ordered, on the 27th of November, 
A D. i860, to assume such a command ? 

We come now to safe ground. Doubts and speculations are out of 
place in this question. This was but fourteen days after Lincoln's 
election. It was but three days after the Alamo meeting, where, as 
generally already throughout the South, the "regular democrats" boldly 
<?i'.s7^;«i?rt^ the dissolution of the Union, as a fact accomplished by the 
black republican victory, and which they themselves had so sedulously 
and presistently brought about. The coming hui*ricane, like the air- 
vacuum preceding a cyclone, was felt by all, everywhere, but most of 
all by us in the Cotton "States. Why, then, on November 27, i860, 
should Robert E. Lee (sound as a dollar, in body, mind, soul, and 
honor — a very "Nathaniel, in whom, indeed was no guile," nor any gall 
either) be relieved from these so heavy and perilous duties, and David 
E. Twiggs pushed into his place ? My friends, I can tell you why. It 
was just because Robert E. Lee was — Robert E. Lee, and moreover, 
because David E. Twiggs was exactly David E. Twiggs, and without the 
least resemblance, whatsoever, to Robt. E. Lee. Robt. E. Lee did not suit 
the K. G. C's., and David E. Twiggs did suit them to a dot. John B. 
Floyd was Secretary of War, and by far the leading man in Mr. Buch- 
anan's ("Breckenridge, and Lane") Cabinet. He had been administer- 
ing the War departments for months in the interests of secession and 
its war. He had transmitted arms, ordnances, munitions, to these very 
Governors of Southern Statei^ which in the event, were first to organize 
volunteer companies, to drill them, and first to secede, to advocate and 
to wage war. And he pursued this system up to the very day before he 
resigned, 29th of December, i860, and actually then ordered immedi- 
ately to Ship Island, near the Balize (mouth of the Mississippi), forty- 
six cannon, and to Galveston, Texas, seventy-eight cannon. Their 
total weight was 843,870 lbs. of metal. But F'ort Sumter had awakened 
the patriotic Pittsburgers. They had stood many such orders before. 
They did not stand this one. They, the people, forcibly prevented this 
shipment. 

Floyd's politics were bred in the bone. In 1832, when John 
B. was a lad, his father, then Governor of Virginia, had, in his 



95 



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annual message, raised his thin bristles against old Hickory. He 
threatened to oppose by force the passage of a federal army southward, 
through the " old Dominion," on an errand of subjugation. (I. Amr. 
Conflict, p. loo.) But proofs that John B. floyd, my olden and ardent 
friend, was a traitor, out and out, and through and through, were superflu- 
ous, almost "a ridiculous excess" of demonstration here and now. 
As, however, that truth enlightens our question as to Twiggs and Texas, 
so much commentary on the then War Department was necessary. 

How General Twiggs scattered invitations for leaves of absence to 
his officers ; how he, verbally and in writing, informed them and the 
general public, at his first setting foot on Texan soil, and along his 
whole trip to head-quarters, that "the game was up ;" that they had 
better go home to attend to their professional interests [aftgiice, get 
other military commissions from the new Government for the newze/ar) ; 
that "the Union would be at an end in less than sixty days ; and, if they 
had pay due them, to draw it at once, as it would be the last;" all this 
has been duly recorded in all the memoirs of those times. These words 
are a quotation from Twiggs. (See Sprague, p. in.) And all these 
things you have often read elsewhere, and, perhaps, remember. But 
you can not conceive the vigor, persistence, and zeal of these talks and 
letters of our new commander on this return to Texas. He still seemed 
to me to wear a mask. But the secession side of his face was less cov- 
ered than before. He talked very differently to the two parties, when 
separated. But he always, whatever he said of himself, or his own pur- 
poses, encouraged the disunionists and discouraged us almost into de- 
spair. He still babbled of that greatest man, Jackson, "of the Proclama- 
tion and the. Force Bill," as formerly. But, then, he stirred by his talk 
the patriotism of his hearers into enthusiasm, whilst, now, he sank us 
into the very "slough of despond." There was absolutely no Ulysses 
to bend Jackson's bow. All of our side were both pigmies and pol- 
troons. Nor, can you imagine, unless you have lived as we did, at the 
head-quarters of a vast frontier department, and knew of the power and. 
patronage of its commander, what a vast influence upon our two par- 
ties there, these vile, traitorous, desponding speeches and writings pro- 
duced. His official letters, often assuming an air of frankness, were 
of like tenor. On December 15th (so soon, too!), he fortells secession 
of Southern States Snd Texas, before March 4th ; — asks instructions ; 
says he is "too old and feeble to take part ; can only await the event, and 
then, when turned adrift, make my way home, if I have one." On 
December 27th he repeats his Cassandra prophecies, asks instructions 
(well knowing sensible instructions to be utterly impossible to his vague 
communicat'ions, without form, and void) ; and adds, that he "shall re- 
main until my services can no longer be available." On December 
28th, General Scott replies to the letter of the 15th instant, reminding 



96 



— 27. — ' 

Twiggs that specific instructions in this dilemma were out of the ques- 
tion, and that he could only tell him, in effect, to do his duty as best he 
possibly could in his trying situation ; and here follows the strangest 
sentence to those who do not know these two men as I did, in these 
words, viz.: "That these proceedings are reminding him (Scott) viv- 
idly of tHe interview he had with you (Twiggs), in Augusta, in 1832." 
"There's worm wood for you !" General Scott then complains, that, 
though he had labored hard, in suggesting and urging proper measures 
to vindicate the Azwi' and property of the United States without waging 
war, etc., all in good time to have them peaceably and efficiently car- 
ried out, he had failed to secure the favorable attention of the Govern- 
ment. The president was friendly, and respectfully listened ; "but the 
War Department [under Floyd] has been little communicative. Up to 
this time he (Scott) has not been shown the written instructions of Major 
Anderson, nor the purport of these more recently conveyed to Fort 
Moultrie by Major Buell." 

" He can only leave the administration of your command in your 
hands with the laws and regulations to guide you, etc." By Geo. W. 
Lay, Major-General W. Scott." 

This letter makes it necessary to go backward in our narrative a 
few weeks. Many of you may have forgotten a certain monograph of 
Gen. Scott, written before the Presidential election and originally in- 
tended for private circulation, called, "Views suggested by the imminent 
danger, October 29, i860, of a disruption of the Union by the seces- 
sion of one or more of the Southern States." 

Very different opinions of this paper, by various parties, have pre- 
vailed. I suppose the opinions of a vast majority of cotemporary crit- 
ics are decidedly adverse, not only to the "views," per se, as a cam- 
paign scheme for the coming war, but also to the prudence or policy of 
its disclosure to the enemy. As for myself, not claiming to be any more 
a military man than a doctor, yet, looking at the questions involved, in 
the mere light of common sense — of "hard horse sense," as we Ken- 
tuckians call that best sort of sense —I must say, that I do believe this 
paper to be only another of the many previous proofs that Winfield 
Scott was, without any equal, the very greatest genius and artist in war 
and war matters, whom this country has ever developed. I have habit 
ually excepted George Washington and General Greene. But as the 
exception was always a weight upon my historical conscience, I have 
concluded to make a clean breast of it, and thus to blurt out what hon- 
estly I think. Omitting his eventual sub-divisions of seceession, which was 
intended as a suggestion to intimidate and delay the "Mason and 
Dixon," and, also, River-Line advocates and asses; — this plan was, in 
substance, to make Cairo a base of operations, to use the rivers — Ohio, 
Mississippi, Missouri, etc. (down stream, remember!) — for transporting 



97 



— 28'- 



all the men and materials for various war ; to descend the Mississippi 
River, seizing in advance, and entrenching and fortifying every strategic 
point from Cairo to the gulf; to ascend the river by our Navy for like 
purposes, and to patrol it, with the help of our fresh-water steamers, 
against all crossings between our posts ; and so, at the very outset of the 
war (if these "Views" should not /Jri't/^w/ any war), and, before the 
rebels, then destitute of arms, transportation, etc., etc., could have pos- 
sibly marched through the mud, to have anticipated or intercepted these, 
our, so facile, movements and measures, to have utterly dissevered 
Texas with her rangers and beeves, and western Louisiana, and Arkan- 
sas, and Missouri from the Confederacy in its very birth-throes. After this 
bisection, to have repeated a like process up the Tennessee and Cum- 
berland rivers, with fit variations by land forces, if necessary — that is, 
unless the rebels should have "thrown up the sponge," as they must 
have done, after the creation of the first grand chasm. 

Of this paper General Scott made two copies, with some brief and 
moderate preliminary arguments against secession on moral and pru- 
dential grounds. The whole aim of this essay was intended to deter 
these infatuated men, upon the ground of the National advantages in 
geographical positions and from her exclusive possession of these river 
facilities and their various supplies, and by thus showing how easily^ 
surely and speedily they would be conquered. And yet, certain astute 
military critics, within the cliques of rival aspirants for the command-in- 
chief, raised their hands and eyes in holy horror at this artless disclosure 
of our military plans to the enemy. As if the main object of the 
monogram had not been to frighten these southern fools from wag- 
ing any war at all, and as if it could make any the least difference, 
even in case of war, whether they knew of our plans or not. Since, from 
the nature of the case, they could not help themselves in anyway. But, 
unfortunately, we soon became as much infatuated as the Fire-eaters. To 
re-occupy and re-possess our National property was a simple, easy matter 
of a few "three months' " volunteers, with the loss of but little time, 
money, or blood. The North overflowed with heroes and strategists from 
the press and the bar. The Tribune office of this inspired band of military 
chiefs, raised the shout of, "On to Richmond !" General Scott's abilities, 
experience, and fame as a soldier and strategist were nothing to those of 
Horace Greeley and his imitators. All the daily papers repeated and 
re-echoed this wretched cry of, ^' On to Richmond! On to Richmond!" 
until Scott's "views" were howled into oblivion, and the politician cam- 
paign of, "On to Richmond 1" was closed in bloody disaster, flight and 
shame at Bulls Run. Then the Nation waked up to realize, amongst 
others, these facts, that War is a science and art to be studied, learned 
and practiced like the rest ; that volunteers, flocking away from the field 
of battle upon their legal discharges, at the first boomings of the rebel 



98 



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cannon, were not 'exactly the sort of troops for " On-fo-Ric/nnond" 
Campaigns ; and that an aggressive and invasive warfare, which re- 
quired not only the taking, but the holding of multitudes of the enemy's 
posts, with their lines of communication, must consume vast stores of 
time, money, and more precious lives. Nevertheless, we blundered on 
to the vast advantage or the rebels, until, at last, we had captured Vicks- 
burg, after it was deliberately fortified by the rebels at a huge loss of all 
those treasures. In other words, we were compelled, so reluctantly and 
lately, to adopt General Scott's views, and to force the passage of the 
Mississippi River, adown which he proposed merely to float with our 
soldiers sleeping ; and it was thus, at last, that we broke the back-bone 
of the rebellion, and made General Grant a hero of heroes. Bear with 
me, if I exemplify all this folly of our first strategy, by recalling this 
fact, that the rebel-usurping Governor of Texas reported to the rebel 
Secretary of War, that, up to February i, 1862, (/. e., in less than one 
year), he had sent across this Mississippi River, from Texas, 68,500 
Texan soldiers, leaving in the State but 27,000, between the ages of six- 
teen and sixty years of age. Her beeves, in the language of Scripture, 
"no man could number." 

Well, about the date of these letters from Twiggs to General Scott, 
say about the I5ih of December, i860, more probably before, or immedi- 
ately after, Twiggs' arrival at San Antonio, General Scott inclosed to me, 
at San Antonio, his second copy of these "Views," with two others of 
those unno'iced and unregarded efforts of his, intended for timely pacifi- 
cation, or else for a wise war, if war there must be, and to also incite 
the administration to its perilous duties. I can not myself doubt that 
his reading those "Views" constituted a special reason, with Floyd, in 
addition to his mistrust of Scott, on account of his general and notorious 
good character, for these studied outrages upon the General in com- 
mand, specified in that letter. In his inclosing and explanatory letter 
to myself, they were all marked: " Strictly private and confidential." 
He asks me to show his "Views" to his old comrades and friends* 
Brevet Major-General D. E. Twiggs and Lieutenant-Colonel Robert E, 
Lee, and to such other officers of the army as, in my discretion, I thought 
might need to have their loyalty to the flag thus braced. I did exactly 
as required. Upon General Twiggs' returning the paper, at about the 
close of a week, he made only these curious remarks, which follow, and 
which broke a silence of a more curious reticence, considering our inany 
previous free talks on Secession topics and the general subject-matter 
of that paper: He said, "It is damned strange, Colonel" (this was 
his own title for me), "that General Scott should have sent this paper 
to you." I made no reply, because I had been troubled with that diffi- 
culty myself, and I then especially felt the delicacy of my task, in the 
presence of my conviction that he took umbrage at being thus overlooked 



90 



— 3° — 



by his old comrade and friend. That General Twiggs had, or pretended 
to have, this friendship, appears very plainly from those words in the 
report of the first interview of the traitor commissioners with him. 
"He professed great admiration for the manhood, soldiership, and 
patriotism of General Scott, and is evidently inclined to imitate him. in 
the present crisis in many respects." Sp. Doc. p. 114. After a few 
secords of rather awkward silence— for all this " strictly private and 
confidential " business was, by his choice, transacted in the presence of 
several persons in Vance's counting room — he added musingly: "Ah ! 
I know General Scott fully believes that God Almighty had to spit on his 
hands to make Bob Lee and Bob Anderson, and you are Major Ander- 
son's brother." To this, I replied in sufficient modesty and truth : 
"Yes," General, I am sure General Scott holds Robert in very high es- 
teem and afifecton. And, doubtless, that is the cause of his intrusting 
me with this most important paper and duty," whereupon, as I saw that 
he had nothing to add about that affair, I took the package from his 
hands and bade him good morning.' 

I then carried the paper straightway to Colonel ,Lee, as I knew he 
was preparing to return to his regimental duty. He took the paper, and 
after a few days he sent for me to come his lodgings, and accordingly I 
went thither, in company with a dear friend, now no more. Dr. Willis 
G. Edwards, deceased. Colonel Lee handed me the package, with only 
this remark : "My friend, I must make one request of you, and that 
is, that you will not suffer these Views to get into the newspapers." And 
I immediately promised it, for, besides my limitations to the same effect 
by General Scott, I imagined that, to military minds as exalted as 
Lee's (for I, then chiefly on General Scott's estimate, held him as high 
in generalship as I do now), there might be some reason, for Scott's 
sake, to suppress its publication. I well knew that General Scott felt 
toward Lee much as a father toward a son, and I supposed, of course, 
that the latter felt for General Scott almost a filial affection. I am even 
yet at a loss for further speculation as to Colonel Lee's motives for that 
request. It is curious enough that long afterwards Twiggs' official news- 
paper in New Orleans, alleged as one of the reasons for my arrest and 
imprisonment, "that he had been detected in a correspondence with 
the General of the enemy." 

This closed our interview concerning the paper itself. But some 
remark of his, or Edward's, or mine — mine most likely — led us into a 
talk — well, a discussion, say — of our national dilemma. Amongst other 
immaterial things, I had hotly denounced the current proceedings as 
causeless, and I had laid the blame, as usual, with me ev^n at so early 
a date, entirely upon the southern side of fanatics and fire-eaters. To 
this speech, or else to the part of it which had characterzed the move- 
ment as causeless (I can not recall which), Colonel Lee calmly replied: 



loo 



— 31 



"that somebody surely was grievously at fault, probably both factions." 
I added, that formerly this had been my firm opinion, but that now I 
could only read in this, our great crisis, a positive conspiracy of south- 
erners to spread slavery for its political, and not for its proprietary 
interests, and that I thought the Abolition " Raw Head and Bloody 
Bones " was their mere pretext. The truth is, that I forgot, in my zeal of 
debate, that he was the very officer who had so lately suppressed John 
Brown's insurrection in his own beloved Virginia. However, his 
patience, or prudence, or his imperturbable charity of good breeding, 
made him overlook my one-sided zeal, and he added nothing on that 
topic. On another subject , something was said which is quite relevant 
to Lee's status in the Rebellion then and afterward. That subject was 
"the loyalty of the citizen; to which authority is it primarily due — to his 
State, or to the Nation?" I think Dr. Edwards introduced thist topic by 
asking me if I remembered Jeff. Davis' doctrine in his former debates 
with Foote in Mississippi, and more recently. I said "yes," but that 
I thought that the Constitution of the United States, in Article 111., 
Section 3 Clause i (quoting it), left no room for doubt or discussion 
as the law of treason must necessarily decide and limit the bond 
of loyalty. 

Without pretending to report what was said, I well and painfully (and 
rather in surprise too,) remember Colonel Lee's conclusion. He said that 
he was educated to believe, and he did believe, that his first obligations 
were due to Virginia. Thereupon, in silence, to myself I recalled these 
images, viz.: — George Washington's farewell address, and that here was 
Washington's heir-at-law almost, and much like him too; also Lee's elder 
brother's bitter book against Thomas Jefferson, the author of all these 
pernicious politics and constitutional heresies, and yet further, — that this 
was also the pupil and piotege and first favorite of this same Winfield 
Scott, and then I sadly asked myself: "whence was this education?'" 
But I subsided into silence, and we left him. In a few days he went to 
his mountain post, I think, and I saw him no more until he passed 
down on his way to report at Wa'^hington city for duty — about the mid- 
dle of April, 1861. 

I beg leave to pursue this episode (if, indeed, it be not a proper part 
of our Texas case) into that scene. He returned to find our army sur- 
rendered, not "to the ^/rt/^ authorities," as even Mr. Greeley alleges, 
but to the "K. G. C's," under the command of one of their own num" 
ber, Ben McCuUough, who had no vestige of a commission, under State 
or any other legitimate authority. Certain "commissioners, officers, or 
persons" were appointed by the standing committee of public safety of 
the so-called convention, "in reference to /rt>^/«^ possession of any of 
the Federal property, within the limits of the State." I am quoting 
here their own official language. In another "State paper," they are 



101 



— 32 



reported and described thus: "Resolved, that Sam. A. Maverick, 
Thomas Devine, Phillip N. Lucket, and James Rogers, be appointed 
commissioners to confer with General D. E. Twiggs," etc And again 
their formal commission, dated February 5, 1861, signed by the chair- 
man of that committee, J. W. Robertson, and attested by the first two 
Rebel Governors, is actually in these words, viz : " are hereby appointed 
commissioners to visit Major-General Twiggs," etc. And this was the 
sole authority under whicli that supreme triumvirate (for Rogers did not 
appear), and Ben McCullough acted. (He was "commissioned" only 
by themselves; and thus, "hereby, appoint you, Ben McCullough, mili- 
tary officer, and order you," etc., etc.) And such was the authority 
which proceeded to usurp and exercise supremest powers in civic admin- 
istration and of open war; and it was such a lawless trio which met 
Lieutenant-Colonel Robert E. Lee, of Virginia (and whose general 
character and standing I have briefly hinted), with this distinct proposi- 
tion, that, unless he would then and there engage to resign his commis- 
sion in the United States Army, and to take one under the confederate 
authority, he should not have transportation for his effects (which were 
bulky and valuable) to the coast. Colonel Lee, thereupon, came to 
me and made this statement in greatest agitation of indignation. I was 
even surprised, not at his emotions, but at this exhibition of them. He 
said, that after forty years of faithful duty to his whole country, and he 
must add, that it was always as he was sure with personal honor, to be 
thus maltreated by such a committee, was beyond his patience to en- 
dure. He then asked me to take charge of his property and have them 
sent on at his private cost, after him. I undertook this duty, and we 
walked to the proper warehouse and commission merchants, Vance & 
Co., to make the necessary preliminary arrangements. On our way, or 
else at the final parting, I think, on the same day, he asked me if I 
remembered our talk at his rooms, with Dr. Edwards ? I told him that 
I did very distinctly. He then said, in substance : " I think it but due 
to myself to say that I can not be moved by the conduct of these peo- 
ple," or "these fellows" (I am not sure which epithet he used), from my 
own sense of.duty. I still think, as I then told you and Dr. Edwards 
that my loyalty to Virginia ought to take precedence over that which is 
due to the Federal Government. And I shall so report myself at Wash- 
ington. If Virginia stands by the old Union, so will I. But, if she 
secedes (though I do not believe in secession as a constitutional right, 
nor that there is a sufficient cause for revolution), then I will still follow 
my native State, with my sword, and if need be with my life. I know 
you think and feel very differently, but I can't help it. These are my 
principles, and I must follow them." Now, these are not pretended 
to have been his literal words, but it is a very faithful report of what he did 
say, in its spirit and very nearly in its language. 



; orl02 

— 33 — 

Now comes our climax to this little episode. When I reached New 
York, on my escape from imprisonment in Texas, in the latter part of 
December. i86l, General Scott invited me to dine with him. I duly 
reported myself at the Clarendon Hotel where he staid. But he said, as 
he wanted to have a long and confidential talk with me, he had ordered 
our dinners away up town at a favorite restaurant, where they had the 
best old wines in the city — especially their clarets. So we rode many 
squares to our meal and conference. Our talk was of very many things, 
past, present and to come; Toward the conclusion of our chat, I sud- 
denly asked : " But, General, what about General Lee ? He answered: 
" Well, my friend, Robert E. Lee is the first soldier of his rank in Chris- 
tendom." I said, "General Scott, do you habitually use the same identi- 
cal words, years apart to express the same thoughts? " " What do you 
mean ! I don't understand you ; but I do not see why I should not." I 
then told him that I would be qualified, that when 1 asked him a like 
question about Lee (as to his fitness for the Superintendency of West 
Point) that he had replied almost, if not exactly, in these very same 
words. He then went on in his usual, rather prolix, but wonderfully 
lucid phrases to give his reasons for that exalted opinion of Lee's, in his 
services in Mexico, especially. "But," I interrupted, "what about him, 
in this, our great matter, this — Rebellion — War? " When he told me in 
substance that, on Lieutentant-Colonel Lee's return from Texas to Wash- 
ington, they had an interview, and that he informed Colonel Lee that, 
among other things in addition to his speedy promotion to the Colonel- 
cy of his regiment (and which immediately occurred), he was author- 
ized to offer to him the command of our armies, next only to Scott's own 
rank of command. But, that Lee, thanking him politely, went on to 
say just what he had told me, on leaving Texas, which was in effect; 
that he would be guided wholly in his action by that of Virginia. 

And here again, I will not hold myself responsible for "ipsissima 
verba" (the very words) ; but I do say that the two declarations in 
Texas and in Washington City were just as nearly identical as the two 
reporters — by no means inexpert or regardless in the use of words — could 
make them in their respective reports. And so, this Robert E. Lee, 
upon a principle, his own sense of duty, turned his back on the highest 
ofifice on this earth (being, considering General Scott's age and infirmi- 
ties, really the commander-in-chief), under an established government; 
and with a foreboding mind and a saddened heart, went to Virginia to 
share her fortunes in her most uncertain destiny and in a certainly very 
subordinate rank, up to the time when his great abilities compelled his 
promotion. 

My comrades, what do you call this sacrifice — for its grandeur ? 
Where in history can you find its equal ? I fail to find one which is 
equal to it. Others, perhaps not a few, may have been sufficiently 



103 



34 — 



devoted to their principles to have been able thus to resist such high 
temptations. But, it must be a very few, if any, in all history, who have 
been at once blessed with the opportunity and the self-abnegation to 
pass by such powers and honers so offered. 

I am well aware that several publications have been made by offi- 
cers and gentlemen of very exalted characters, which give a wholly 
different statement of General Scott's and Colenel Lee's interviews, from 
these my own recollections of them. And 1 much regret this contradic- 
tion. Nor can I either avoid or explain it. But. whether the alleged 
official final interview between them was, or was not, fully reported, or 
whether the alleged charge by General Scott, /^a^' Colonel Lee was a 
''traitor,^' was ever made at all, or else was made at a date subsequent 
to the interview or communication herein narrated ; — I am very sure of 
the general accuracy of my own account as well of General Scott's dis- 
position toward General Lee. And, moreover, it is just because I be- 
lieve my translations of General Lee's character and conduct to be true, 
and these contradictory assertions to be most erroneous and cruelly un- 
just, that I feel bound — all the more in proportion to the rank and influ- 
ence of his posthumous accusers— to disclose the truth of history. And 1 
am yet more impelled to such vindication of that great and good man's 
fame by the conviction that, under the baneful influences of clique and 
party at Washington City, our Government committed a most disgrace- 
ful outrage in the seizure and uses of his wife's estate at Arlington. Pru- 
dence in my own interests might deter me in this conflict of testimony. 
But duty to the memory of a soldier, of whom the whole Nation ought 
to be proud, is a higher law in my faith. 

Let us now review a few of the events themselves, in their order. 
On January 15, 1861, General Twiggs writes to General Scott: "As 
soon as I know certainly that Georgia has separated from the Union, I 
must of course follow her. I most respectfully ask to be relieved, in the 
command of this department, 'on or before the 4th of March next." (In- 
auguration day. He picks his own time). "Signed, D. E. Twiggs." 
But others had different ideas. ■ Endorsed on this letter on its receipt^ 
are these words, viz.: " Relieve Major-General Twiggs, and ask the 
Secretary (Holt) to devolve the command on Colonel Waite, with an 
assignment according to his brevet. W. S." 

On January i8th, Twiggs writes again, after more prophesyings 
and a sarcasm on the commander of the Department of the East (Gen- 
eral Wood) for his boasting "that he had 200,000 men on hand to regu- 
late the South," he adds: " After secession, I know not what will be 
done. I know one thing. 1 will never fire on American citizens." 
D. E. Twiggs to Adjutant-General, at Washington City, id. p. 361. And 
all these official reports were repeatedly exposed in his letter book to 
private-known rebels as well as to the rebel commissioners, even at their 
first interview, on February 8, 1861, (Sprague, p. 119). 



-104 

— 35 — 

But here begun a new correspondence between dovernor Houston 
and General Twiggs. On January 22, 1861, being notified by Governor 
Houston of the danger of an unauthorized mob, etc., he issues orders to 
the troops at the Posts to take up arms and to march to San Antonio. 
On the 28th of January he countermands these orders. (No. 10.) 

It must be remembered distinctly, on this my testimony, and that 
of very many others, that, from the time of his return, with increasing 
frequency and vehemence of his speeches, General Twiggs had not only 
declared that he "would never fire on American citizens under any cir- 
cumstances," but that he would surrender the United States property in 
his department to the State of Texas, whenever it was demanded. 

If it were not making this narrative too biographical, I could 
relate an instructive and amusing colloquy, between General Twiggs 
and myself, upon this precise point. All these speeches and 
pledges were duly reported to Governor Houston, when made in the 
hearing of Union men, mostly through our leader, Judge I. A. Paschall- 
Governor Houston, who was quite as cunning as Twiggs, on Jan- 
uary 20, 1 86 1 (the day before the convening of the Legislature, in 
which, by the way, he had no faith), addressed a letter to Twiggs, with 
these points, viz.: " I send General J. M. Smith on a confidential mis- 
sion, to know what you consider it your duty to do, as to maintaining, in 
behalf of the Federal Goverment, or passing over to the State, the pos- 
session of the forts, arsenals, and public property within this State ; and, 
also, if a demand for the possession of the same is made by the execu- 
tive (whether), you are authorized, or, if it would be conformable to 
your sense of duty, to place in possession of the authorities of the State 
the forts, arsenals, munitions, and property of the Federal Government, 
on the order of the executive to an officer of the State, empoiuered to 
receive and receipt for the same. Arrangements made with you, by 
General Smith, will be sanctioned and approved by me ; and, should 
you recjuire any assistance to aid you in 'resisting the contemplated at- 
tack upon the public property, etc., and to place the same in possession 
of the State authorities, you are, hereby, authorized to call on the Mayor 
and citizens of San Antonio for such assistance as you may deem neces- 
sary. Hoping to hear promptly, etc., etc. Sam. Houston." 

Was not this a snug cornering of the " old Georgia fox ?" And if 
he had been restrained by the least regard for his promises, threats, or 
other words, he. would have been cornered. Houston almost uses his 
own language in these inquiries of what he would do. The status, so 
often foretold in his own petitions for instructions, was actually upon 
him. The demand of the State sovereignty was formally made of him, 
now became so ardent a "States-rights man." And the aid offered was, 
by no means, to be despised. San Antonio was then, as long after- 
wards, unquestionably loyal to the Union by a large majority. What 



105 



-36- 



was he to do, thus caught in his own trap ? We shall see presently 
what, in fact, he did. Meantime, we must intercalate other actions here. 

About this time — I think, a little before — I received, in a letter from 
Judge I. A. Paschall, and others, a request from Governor Houston to 
come up to Austin, forthwith, on pressing public business. And, forth- 
with, I went. On my arrival there I learned two things. The first was, 
that it had been intended to make of me a big man, or officer ; that is, 
to have been "empowered to receive and receipt for all the forts, ar- 
senals, arms, munitions, and other property of the United States within 
the State of Texas ;" but the second fact 1 learned was, that I was only, 
"in the panning out" (as the miners phrase it), a very common man, and 
no officer of a Sovereign State at all ! Governor Twiggs, on Ja7iHary 
22, /86/, ha.d replied, to Governor Houston, thusly : — "To his Excel- 
lency, Samuel Houston, Governor of Texas : Sir; yours received : I am 
without instructions from Washington, in regard to the disposition of 
the public properties here, or the troops, in the event of the State's se- 
ceding." Now, whoever thought of such ''instructions from Washing- 
ton ?" He had, over and over again, declared that "instructions, or no 
instructions," he would never, never — no, never — fire on American citi- 
zens ; and so, with the air full of rumors of mobs, arming to seize this 
trust in his keeping, and of his own consequent commands and counter- 
mands for all the troops to march to his and their defense, he had 
plainly and repeatedly invited those American citizens to their work of 
easy and big plunder, as well as Governor Houston to his demand. 
And he had as often said, and in my hearing too, that, if the State made 
this demand of him (a sworn trustee !), he would surrender up his whole 
trust, and that, too, with no such absurd qualifications about "instruc- 
tions from Washington." But hear him farther in this letter. It gets 
richer and richer to the perfect day. He proceeds : "After secession, 
if the Executive of the State make a demand of the commander of this 
Department, he w/// receive an answer!! Signed, David A. Twiggs." 
On February 2, i86i (ten days after his correspondence with Governor 
Houston), Twiggs writes to Colonel S. Cooper, Adjutant-General at 
Washington (yet), enclosing Govei-nor Houston's letter and his reply. He 
adcjs : "As I do not think any one in authority desires me to carry on 
a civil war against Texas, I shall, after secession, if the Governor re- 
peats his demand, direct the arms and property to be turned over to his 
agents, keeping in the hands of the troops the arms they now have." 
He repeats his demand for "instructions as to what I should do after 
secession," etc., etc. 

It now remains to show that, after refusing to the duly-authorized 
executive of a Sovereign State this turning over of the United States 
property, after refusing to that officer, even to say what he would do 
even after secession, promising only "afi answer," whilst he was threat- 



'loe 



— 37 — 



ening our two parties and the Government at Washington, that he would 
then surrender it, and knowing well enough that his time for surrender 
could not be circumvented by the United States Government ; with all 
these facts and false pretenses upon his own records, it only remains to 
be shown, that he did actually and formally make that surrender before 
secession, and to a 7nob of volunteer maurauders, with no shadow of 
pretense of any recognized authority on earth. Unless the force of the 
K. G. C's., invited by his own loose talks and close collusions, are to be 
adjudged as legitimate authority. Nor, can any defense be made for 
him» as to his acting thus under mistaken convictions. He had him- 
self distinctly construed this date of Texas-secession, as legally fixed, 
if ever, upon March z^ proximo. 

The months of December, i860, and January, 1861, passed away 
with Twiggs' contradictory talks and dispatches, and with no other inci- 
dent worthy of our notice here, except that sundry petitions were sent 
to Governor Houston to convene the Legislature. This he, at first, sturdily 
refused to do. Whereupon, some time in January, 1861, sixty-one private 
persons and conspirators — a majority of them clerks in the departments 
at Austin, and, as I believe, all Knights of the Golden Circle — issued a 
hand-bill, over their own signatures, ordering an election of delegates to 
a constitutional convention, to be held on January 28, 1861 ; and even 
legislating the modes of conducting and officering it. The convention 
itself was ordained to meet at Austin. Of this document (with all its 
results, of course), it is well remarked by Mr. Greeley that "it had just 
as much legal validity and force as a harangue at a negro camp-meet- 
ing." And yet, with this incoritestible legal proposition staring him in 
the face, he calls the mere offspring of that fraud, hatched "within a lit- 
tle month," "the State authorities." This election, if it may be so called^ 
was held. The polls were opened by the " K. G. C's.," and but ten 
thousand votes were even reported to be cast, out of the eighty-odd 
thousand of the State. And many of those, reported as cast, were as 
false and fraudulent as were the sham authority and proceedings by 
which the election was ordered and the convention ordained. Indeed, 
with such an area and diffusion of its population, with the time and labor 
requisite for the conveyance of information, as were these conditions in 
Texas, it is safe to say, that this mere sham of an election was over be- 
fore a majority of our people had ever heard of this scheme. 

According to Newcomb, Governor Houston, seeing this drift of 
French-revolutionary proceedings, and in order to head off this mere 
mob of a convention, and, if possible, to get a fair expression of the 
people in a proper and dignified manner, and, with some semblance of 
legal forms, after repeated refusals, called an extra session to take into 
consideration the ordering of a real election for delegates to a conven- 
tion. By this time it had become plain enough that it was indispensable 



107 



-38- 



that the Legislature should, as a legal body, meet, to consider and de- 
cide upon these outrageously revolutionary proceedings under such sham 
forms of law, as well as to take action about the crisis itself. And it is 
merely a contemptible bit of partisan sarcasm for a Union annalist to 
call "Governor Houston nicknames, because he did not persist in his re- 
fusal? to convene the Legislature, for the reason that he knew its ma- 
jority to be opposed to his politics. He did not know — he could not 
know — he had no right to dream that men, who wore clean shirts under 
broad-cloth, and who had all the semblance of being gentlemen and 
men of average honesty and honor, would act and enact as they event- 
ually did. Moreover, I insist, that, if he had been one of those modern 
nliracles (a statesman or soldier who sees the future as clearly as he 
sees the past, which most of our orators and historians seem to demand 
of all other actors than themselves, in those early rebellion-scenes)— 
Governor Houston ought still to have convened the Legislature ! Here 
was a critical dilemma in the State's destiny. The Legislature was as gen- 
uine a department of her government as was the Executive. This novel 
state of her affairs, wholly unprovided for by any laws for the Governor 
to execute, was naturally and specially within the province and sphere 
of the law-making power. The Governor of Texas was as yet no dicta- 
tor. Texas was as yet under no martial law, nor given over to the man- 
agement of mere party-tricksters. The forms and the spirit of regular, 
legitimate civic government were still his plain duty, as it was his most 
politic (curse that word, "politic" ) course. It passes my patience to 
read in works of history, by men and writers of genius and moral worthy 
like Horace Greeley, the violent, passionate epithets of partisan politics 
for thus doing what George Washington or Algernon Sidney would have 
done in like cases. 

And as for the party-game aspect of the case, it passes dispute that 
this was one of the cutest tricks ever devised or attemped. For, tirst, 
a legislature or legitimate convention would have caused delay in lieu of 
the K. G. C.'s indispensable haste. Second. It would have commanded 
the support of every honest and conservative disunionist in the Legisla- 
ture and among the people (if anythere were), as well as of all who were 
afraid of their constituents, as all demagogues ever are. In other words, 
it tended to produce a division, discord, indeed, among the secessionists, 
and so to help the Union cause most critically. That it failed in all 
these ends was no fault of this design. It was circumvented only be- 
cause the conspirators were more unprincipled in their plots and more 
recklessly bold in their bad, bad execution of them, than even Governor 
Houston had ever experienced or could have foreseen. 

The rascal, within his olden acquaintance in former Texas, plots 
and revolutions, had at least varnished over their villainies with a pre- 
tense of legal forms of law and order or of popular rights. But these Texas 



108 



39 — 



conspirators and traitors threw oil" all masks and vaunted themselves 
for their lawlessness, faithlessness, and disorder. Nevertheless, it is 
simply not true that this action ended in no good. You see it every- 
where stated in history that Texas was the sole southern State that sub- 
mitted her act of secession to the people for their adoption. The seces- 
sion of all the southern states were, in fact, sheer usurpations of authority 
over all popular rights. As Mr. Stephens truly told the Georgia Legis- 
lature, "Gentlemen, you were not sent here, with these extraordinary 
powers. You are transcending your delegated authority." Neither the 
southern "States" nor "people" ever did conspire, secede, or rebel in 
any legal or honest sense. Squads of conspirators plotted and usurped 
the authority of the "States" and the rights of their peoples. The peo- 
ples, betricked, betrayed, and entangled, only acquiesced in the una- 
voidable. And this usurpation and invasion of the people's rights 
was as strong in the matter of the subsequent confederatifig, as it had 
been in the previous dissolving proceedings. 

"aijx.But, why did Texas alone, in her ordinance of secession, require the 
vote of the people to give it life ? Was it, think you, that her Legislature 
or convention were more under the restraints of the forms of law and 
order or of popular rights, or, that Texas was more conservative than 
the other seceding States ? Not a bit of it 1 On the contrary, Texas was 
notoriously the least conservative State in the Union, probably in the 
world. She inserted that clause simply and purely, because Sam. Hous- 
ton had cornered and turned the lights upon this squad and their total 
want of authority from either the written constitution or from the voting 
people. A debate about the legitimacy of that convention, thus sitting 
by the authority or sixty-one loafers on the one hand, and of Governor 
Houston's proposed convention, with all the sanctions of constitution, 
law, and popular power on the other how else could it end — than as it 
did.? "We must now fill up this vacuum by a retro-active popular 
vote." And this ruse of Houston enforced that change of programme. 

But it is alleged again that this proviso, or reservation availed noth- 
ing in its outcome. And that the State was, in fact, whirled out of the 
Union by the K. G. C's., before the day of the popular ratification (vivi- 
fication, I should rather call it). This is also most true. But was that 
Governor Houston's fault of omission or of commission ? You might as 
well blame the architect or custodian of one of your banks for insufficient 
walls, or locks in the safe, if adverse villains should blow the whole 
building down into the earth, by dynamite, as to censure this true Union , 
loyal Governor, because these yet more desperate villains, the K. G. C's 
and their tools, had no regard for his restraints or defenses, which were 
all that an honest man and law-abiding officer could have interposed. 

The Legislature met, and, as Newcomb says, " most atrociously 



V 



TOO 



~4o— 



recognized the convention wholesale." The Governor vetoed this enact- 
ment. It was again enacted over his veto. And, on January 28th, this 
convention, so-called, thus elected and authorized, assembled in the Hall 
of the House of Representatives. Having been ordered to Austin by 
Governor Houston, I had remained there, conferring with him, John 
Hancock, Dr. Phillips, Judge George H. Paschall (brother of our San 
Antonio leader). Banning Norton, Senator Haynes, and a few others as 
true a band of patriots as ever thought, felt, talked, worked, suffered or 
fought for the best, but surely then a very desperate cause. On Febru- 
ary 1st, the convention, by a vote of 166 yeas to seven nays, passed a 
secession ordinance, to be submitted to the people of Texas for their rati- 
fication or rejection by the qualified voters, "on the 23d of February," 
and, if adopted by them to go into effect upon the id of March, proximo, 
On February 4th, the Legislature, by a joint resolution, affirmed their or- 
dinance. 

It remains ne.xt to show the transparent villainy under all these 
shams and impudent frauds. On the same 2d of February, the conven- 
tion created a committee of pubhc safety, with the most absolute and 
unlimited military powers within their own discretion. 

This committee, by its chairman, Hon. John C. Robertson, reports 
to Hon. O. M. Roberts, president of the convention that, on the 2nd 
day of February, the very tiext day to their ordinance of secession, and 
twenty-two days before the pretended election-vote by the people for 
ratification or rejection, and the whole of the time , less than that one day, 
of February 1st, before the sacred day when the secession was, if ratifi- 
ed to take effect, actually proceeded to perpetrate as follows, viz.: 

Resolved, That "by the people of the State of Texas, by delegates in 
convention assembled, that, should the standing committee of Public 
Safety deem it essential to the public safety, to appoint commissioners, 
officers, or persons, in reference to taking charge of the Federal property 
within the limits of this State, they shall have power to appoint such and 
assign them their duties and give them instructions, under which they 
shall act, but this power shall only extend to such cases in which the 
committee may deem prompt action and secrecy absolutely necessary. 
That a copy of this resolution, signed by the president of this convention, 
and the appointment and instructions signed by Hon. John C. Robert- 
son, chairman of said committee, shall be /2^//a«///<?r//y to the person, or 
persons, acting under the same, and -3. full justification for all acts done 
in pursuance thereof." Adopted second of February, A. D., ib6i. And 
this was their third ordinance enacted after that of secession. Let 
us now consider the pressing necessity, for this promptitude and secrecy 
of enactment and of that action recommended to the committee of Pub- 
lic Safety or their proposed commissioners. Their alleged motives in 
this report of the committee are partly in these words, viz.: " After the 



.XIO 



■ 41 — 



passage of the ordinance of secession by the convention " (not after its 
ratification by the people at the election of the 23d of February, nor 
after the 2d of March next, when it was ordained first "to take effect"'), 
"the committee, beUeving that it would be of the highest importance to 
secure to the State of Texas the property belonging to the United States 
then within the State, that the public safety demanded that Texas should 
have control of the arms and munitions of war within her limits, it was 
too tnanifest for the committee to hesitate as to their duties on this sub- 
ject. The policy o{ coercion, it was believed, would be adopted by the 
incoming administration of the /ate United Stcite Government, and, with 
about two thousand eight hundred United States regular troops, etc., etc., 
dangerous," etc. 

" It was also believed by the committee that, although many of the 
army officers in command, in the Eighth Military district of the State of 
Texas, would never consent to use the military forces under their com- 
mand against the people of Texas." (They had Twiggs' thousand times 
repeated verbal pledges, and even his exhibited official reports to the 
government of the late United States to secure him to their cause.) 
"Yet, the committee did not know, and could not know, how soon the 
friends of the 'Somh' might be superseded, and our enemies placed in 
their stead. In view of these facts, and the fact that Texas was justly 
entitled to her share of the public property, and in view of the fact that 
Texas was without arms for her defense, the committee, under the au- 
thority of an 'ordinance' of the convention passed 2d of February, 1861^ 
^voce&dQd to set on foot a. plan for obtaining possession of the United 
States property, and for the removal of the United States troops from 
Texas." You must mark that, so far, the sole plan set on foot was a 
commission to visit and confer with General Twiggs. Passing now 
our comments on this raising of the olden masks of peaceable se- 
cession, which was, "that by going through the motion of secession, 
we can obtain better terms than if we tried within the Union," which 
lies alone gave this proceeding its success outside of South (^arolina^ 
let us scrutinize further this plea for prompt urgency. 

Remember, here again, that our troops were scattered in sixteen to 
twenty posts of from fifty to one hundred and fifty men, artillery, caval- 
ry, and infantry, along a line of frontier from Red River to the mouth of 
the Rio Grande, of 1,400 miles (Governor Clark of Texas reports it to 
the confederate government, 1,700 miles long), and at distances from 
San Antonio, varying between 65 miles to Camp Verde up to 675 miles 
to Fort Bliss. And most especially remember, and note it too as a fact, 
bearing upon the injustice of the northern censures of our officers for 
surrendering, and of Governor Houston for not entering into that insane 
scheme of an extranched Union-camp at Indianola — remember and note 
well — I repeat — these remaining conditions of the case, viz; That, "the 



Ill 



Ga- 



lileans of transportation had been cut off at all the posts" (by General 
Twiggs), and the amount of ammunition and subsistence reduced to the 
consumption from week to week. During the months of February and 
March there was not one command in Texas able to move one hundred 
miles from the post for the want of animals, wagons, and subsistence. 
Spr. p. III. 

It surely could not be pretended by even a Texas committee, nor 
by a junto of southern gentlemen of honor (the classes of that era, the 
most prolific in false pretenses since the good old times of their proto- 
types of Venice or Lacedemon) that the then conditions of the property 
or army of the late United States in Texas was a tit excuse for such 
"prompt action and secrecy." And only to think of these other just 
causes for their delay, viz.: that these troops had all been placed there, 
only to save our Texas scalps from the Comanches and Mexicans ; that 
the troops had not been actually removed before the Comanches followed 
through their vacated posts, and the Mexicans so menaced along their 
frontier that th<*, fire-eating, usurping Governor (forgetting all his 
"southern chivalry," I began to squeal like a pig for help! help! help! 
against the Indians and Mexicans ; and also that those very distances 
and other Texan conditions, made it a safe and easy thing to capture 
our troops and to steal our property, at their leisure. 

Their real motives for this prompt action and secrecy have been 
partly confessed, and a very, essential motive, their main motive, will 
soon appear most openly. Their record continues : "Preparatory to 
the appointment of officers and commissioners under said ordinance, 
and to insure secrecy, as against the enemies of the country" ("that's 
us,'' as Dot says in the "Chimney Corner"), the following proceedings 
were had by the committee, viz : " On the 3d of February, 1861, it was 
moved and adopted by the committee that all officers appointed by this 
committee should be elected by ballot, and the commissioners above 
named (Messrs. Maverick, Devine, Luckett, and Rogers) were so 
elected." 

On Monday, February 4, 1861, an oath — not iron-bound, but a 
steel-clad oath was devised and adopted to be administered to each of 
the committee. Now, as I suppose myself to be entitled to a copy-right 
to this phrase of steel-clad oath for that committee, I hereby permit any 
future historian to spell the word "steel," just as he pleases. I do not 
myself perceive why the strictness of the terms of this oath should give 
any preference for the metallic sense over that purely larcenious purpose 
of their whole proceedings, which so soon became its history, viz.: Theft, 
pure and simple, qualified by the higher crime of robbery, in at least two 
instances as defined by strictest law. 

And now here comes the official exposition of that main motive 
of the aforesaid ordinance of the convention, and for such 



112 



•43- 



prompt and secret action of the committee, and of their commis- 
sioners in this whole matter. Our record proceeds : " On the 3d day of 
February, 1861, the committee having been informed that General 
Twiggs, who was then in command of the eighth military district in 
Texas, with head-quarters at San Antonio, was a southern man by birth, 
and vidiS friendly to the cause of the South, who would, in all probability, 
surrender up to the 'convention' (Mr. Greeley phrases this — to the 
' 6'Ai/^-authorities,' and Sam. Houston still governor I) all the Federal 
property under his control, on demand being made, passed the following 
resolution, already quoted in another connection, with the hope that 
civil commissioners might accomplish the purposes of the committee 
without the display of an armed force : 

"Resolved, That Sam. A. Maverick, Thomas S. Devine, Philip N. 
Luckett, and James H. Rogers be appointed commissioners, to confer 
with General D. E. Twiggs with regard to the public arms, munitions of 
war, etc., under his control, and belonging to the government of the 
United States, with power to demand and remove the same, in the name 
of the State of Texas, clothed with full powers," etc. Then follows for- 
mal and fully attested copy of the commission to these ministers, pleni- 
potentiary, from this high and mighty band of " K. G. C's," to this 
"southern man of birth, ^.nd friendly to the cause of the South." 

"Given under my hand, and by order ot the Committee of Public 
Safety, at the city of Austin, February 5, 1861. 

J. C. ROBERTSON, 
"Chairman Committee of Public Safety. 

"Attest : 

"Thomas J. Lubback, 

"J. A. Greene." 

(Two governors for witnesses.) 

"But/^i/" (I am still quoting official records) "General David E. 
Twiggs should decline to surrender the government proper, and delay 
might prove fatal to the enterprise [e.g., some honest man might be put 
in his place)," the committee thought it prudent to elect Colonel Ben. 
McCuUoch to the military rank of Colonel of Cavalry, and commis- 
sion him accordingly. The following is a copy of his commission : 

"Austin, Texas, February 3, 1861. 

" The committee do hereby appoint you, Ben. McCulloch, military 
" officer^ (no Colonel, or other rank whatever), "and order you to hold 
yourself in readiness to raise men and munitions of war, whenever called 
on by the commissioners to San Antonio, and to be governed as directed 
by secret instructions given said commissioners concerning said com- 



w 



o 



■44 — 



mand ; and you will station yourself at the residence of Henry McCul- 
loch, and await communicotions of said commissioners, or the Commit- 
tee of Public Safety. 

"J. C. ROBERTSON, 
" Chairman Committee of Public Safety." 

Now, is it not a grim joke, for us to call such stuff as all this, and 
their creatures and proceedings, " the authority of the State of Texas ?" 
And considering the grave question in the matter of General Twiggs' 
innocence or guilt, to be — whether he was acting in pursuance even of 
the so-called State Sovereignty doctrines, in his negotiations with these 
" Commissioners of San Antonio," and in surrendering to this Ben. 
McCulloch, military officer, and his mob of K. G. C's, is it not mere 
folly to give him the advantages of this, his own false pretense ? No ; 
Twiggs well knew that the other party was nof Texas." And, in his cor- 
respondence, up to its close, he repeatedly reminds the commissioners 
(as befare specified in another connection) that "Texas had not yet 
seceded — was not yet out of the Union." And, on the 23d of Febru- 
ary, 1861 (our election day), L. P. Walker Confederate Secretary of 
War, thus also officially admonishes the Texas delegates at Montgomery, 
Alabama : 

"War Department, Montgomery, Ala. 

"The President reminds you that Texas has not yet seceded," etc. 
Mr. Davis was too wise a man to be cheated by such chaff in logic, and 
too honest a man to treat with these fellows, as representing any govern- 
ment — State or other. 

These high "commissioners to" General D. E. Twiggs, "a southern 
man by birth, a.nd. friendly ," etc., or, "to San Antonio" (as the case 
.may be), thereupon proceed to action "forthwith, if not sooner," and, 
"clothed in this little brief authority (force), played such fantastic 
tricks before high Heaven as made the very angels (except the fallen 
ones,) weep." They now took the bits in their mouths and the reins 
upon their necks, and pranced off, out of sight and hearing of Conven- 
tion, Committee of Public Safety, and every other authority, except that 
of the fallen angels aforesaid and their K. G. C's directory. They soon 
became the sole power in the State. 

The truth was, however, that all this coquetting about a "civic sur- 
render," or the "display of an armed force," or for you, "Ben. Mc- 
Cujloch, military officer, to raise men and munitions," was all a cloak, 
devised primarily by Twiggs with the K. G. C's, at San Antonio, as a 
mere sho'iv of force, to seem to justify his proceeding. Doubtless, as 
this upstart government grew more confident, they became more avari- 
cious. They wished him to fork over^ quietly, and without any expense 



.114 



— 45 — 



incurred for "the display of an armed force;" and so, the correspond- 
ence goes on between the high parties, from February 6th until its 
finale, February l8, l86i. When the commissioners make their 
report of the thing done — how Colonel Ben. McCulloch arrived on the 
Salado, on the night of the i6th of February — how he marched into town 
about four o'clock, A. M.,and and stationed his troops — how, "after con- 
siderable delay," in accordance with your instructions, we repeated the 
" demand," and after considerable delay, came to an arrangement with 
General Twiggs, the substance of which was, that the United States 
troops in San Antonio, one hundred and sixty in number, thus sur- 
rounded by nine hundred and fifty (in reality, about eleven hundred) 
men, were surrounded by him before 12 m., — the full disclosure of all 
these shams becomes too plain for doubt. On the same day General 
Twiggs issued to all the posts the following : 

Head-quarters Department of Texas. 

San Antonio, February 16, 1861. 
General Orders No. 5. 

The State of Texas having demanded, through its commissioners, 
the delivery of military posts and public property within the limits of 
the command, and the commanding General desiring to avoid even the 
possibility of a collision between the Federal and State troops, the posts 
will be evacuated by their garrisons, etc." (Directs then their marchings 
to the coast.) On the same date, and as their part of the agreement, 
these " Commissioners on the part of Texas" gave Twiggs an instru- 
ment, signed in due formality, that they " fortnally and solemtily agreed 
with Brevet Major-General David E. Twiggs," etc., " that the troops of 
the United States shall leave the soil of the States by the way of the 
coast," etc. "It is the desire of the commission that there be no infrac- ■ 
tion of this agreement on the part of the people of the State. It is their 
wish, on the contrary, that every facility shall be afforded the troops. 
They are our friends. They have, heretofore, afforded to our people all 
the protection in their power, and we owe them every consideration." 

And also, on this very same date of February 18, 1861, this same 
General David E. Twiggs indites the following ofificial letter to Colonel 
Lorenzo Thomas, now Adjutant-General, U. S. A., at Washington, in 
place of Samuel Cooper (gone straightway to the same office at Mont- 
gomery, Ala., probably without a change of his shirt), as follows, viz.: 

"On the 15th instant, the order (No. 22, of January 28, 1861,) reliev- 
ing me in command was received. On the morning of the 16th, some 

r 
one thousand "State troops took possession of the public property m 

this place. Colonel Waite is absent some sixty miles from -here, at 
Camp Verde. I await his arrival to surrender the command to him. 

" I am yours, etc., 

"DAVID E. TWIGGS." 



1.1^5 



-46- 



What do you think of that for coolness ? Besides his outrageous, in- 
famous delay in acknowledging the receipt of this order of relief, dated 
February 4th, and and received, doubtless, before the 15th; besides his 
silence during all the pressing, agonizing correspondence with these 
impudent usurpers from February 4th up to date ; besides his offering to 
surrender to Colonel Waite his command, when he knew himself 
relieved certainly three days before, and that Colonel Waite could have 
been notified and gotten to San Antonio on the i6th, or two days before 
his surrender to Ben; McCuUoch, this Major-General of the United 
States Army actually omits, in his official report to his Government, the 
stupendous fact, that he had also surrendered, and had ordered to be 
evacuated, all the posts along a line of fourteen himd7-ed miles. Nor 
does he take the slightest notice of the same order to report himself in 
person to Washington City. 

In a second report of these fellows (who now habitually sign them- 
selves " Commissioners on behalf of Common Public Safety" — no longer 
"to General Twiggs," nor "to San Antonio"), are these amusing pas- 
sages, viz, : " The arrangements entered into between the Commission- 
ers and the General commanding the Federal troops in Texas, it is be- 
lieved, are the best (so far as regards the safety of the State, its honor, 
?ir\d pecuniaiy interest) that could be made." Then follows their esti- 
mate of the value of their steal, surrendered in San Antonio, at 
$1,481,808. The surplus of funds seized in San Antonio was $33,472.39. 
This sum was stolen by collusion with Major Sackfield Macklin, 
Paymaster, U. S. A., who informed them of its being _in tran- 
situ to Texas. Together, they plotted a plan how they might commit 
highway robbery upon the messenger in custody, who was a fi-iend of 
mine. Lieutenant Thomas M. Jones, of Virginia, First Lieutenant Eighth 
Infantry, U. S. A. 

Again (they proceed): "the successor of (General Twiggs, Colo- 
nel C. A. Waite, arrived in this city a few hours after the negotiations 
with General Twiggs had been closed." It is an interesting side-fact, 
that Colonel Waite got lost on his way to San Antonio, coming in on 
his own hook, otherwise he would have been there before the surrender. 
But to prevent such a catastrophe, they had, among them, sent out a 
detachment to capture him, in order to prevent his arrival. So that his 
getting lost prevented his 'being made a prisoner. The winding-up of 
this great plot of treachery, official and personal, occurred rapidly, and 
may be generally stated. The correspondence, after a verbal agree- 
ment, in sundry interviews, began February 8th. 

The first letter asks for admissions, by Twiggs, of the terms verb- 
ally agreed on, "in writing." On the 9th of February, Twiggs replies, 
"that he has this day appointed a military commission to meet 'them,' 
to transact the necessary business respecting the disposition of the 
Federal property." 



lie 



•47 — 



And on the same date, by special orders No. 20, a "Military Com- 
missioft, to consist of Major David H. Vinton, Quartermaster, Major 
Sackfield Macklin, Paymaster, and Captain Robert H. K. Whiteley, Or- 
dnance Department, is hereby appointed to meet the Commissioners 
on behalf of the 'Convention ' (no longer of the ' State') of the people 
of Texas, at such times and places as may be agreed upon to trans- 
act," etc. 

Then follows a correspondence between these military and those 
traitorous Commissioners, about the times of meeting. 

A stall, or delay, made by the action of the honest majority of the 
Military Committee (Major Vinton and Captain Whiteley), calls out the 
following note from the other party : 

San Antonio, February 11, 1861. 
To Major D. H. Vinton, Sackfield Macklin, and Captain R. K. 
Whiteley, 

Military Commission. 
Gentlemen : — 

The undersigned, by virtue of the powers vested in them, do now 
demand of you, in the name and by the authority of the sovereign_ 
pleple of the State of Texas (twelve days before the people were to 
speak for themselves, remember), in convention assembled, as they 
have heretofore demanded oi Brevet Major-General Twiggs, a delivery 
of all the arms of every description, military stores, including quarter- 
masters', commissary, and medical stores, and public moneys, and 
everything else under the control of the General in command l)elonging 
to the Federal Government. 

If an affirmative answer is not given to this demand, the following 
questions are submitted for your consideration, and answers to the same 
are respectfully required : 

Do you consent and agree to the following stipulations ? 

1. That everything under the control of the commanding General, 
in the Department of Texas, shall remain in statu quo until the 2d day 
of March next ? 

2. That no movement, change of position, or concentration of 
troops shall take place ? 

3. That none of ^ the arms, ordnances, military stores, or other 
property, shall be disposed of before that time, ordinary consumption 
excepted ? 

4. That upon the second day of March the public property in 
Texas shall, without delay, be delivered to the undersigned, or such 
other Commissioners wht) may be authorized to act on behalf of the 
Convention ? 

An answer is respectfully required. 

We remain, etc., 

(Signed.) 



-48— 

On the I2th of February, 1861, the MiUtary Commission respond, 
seriatim, to the questions. They assent to theyfr^/ or statu quo proposal, 
unless, first, authority higher than the General shall not order the troops 
from Texas; or second, unless the inroads of Indians may make it 
necessary to defend the Texans ; or, third, unless it might become neces- 
sary for the troops to defend themselves from attacks of irresponsible 
parties coming from whatever quarter. To the second proposal they 
agreed, that "no movement of troops" should occur, with the same 
contingencies as in the preceding answer. 

To the third (about delivery of all the property), they agree with- 
out qualifications. 

To \he fourth demand, they refuse, first, to give up the moneys in 
the hands of the disbursing officers, being out of the control of the 
commanding General. Second, to take away from the troops "their 
legitimate arms in possession, etc., which may be necessary for an effi- 
cient and orderly movement of the troops from Texas, prepared for 
attack or defense against aggression from any source, etc. 

And, now, do you know why General Twiggs always so stickled 
against this surrender of the arms legitimately in possession of the 
troops ? He knew from the first what an accident revealed to the other 
side, viz : that whatever authority, not legitimately under the stars and 
stripes, might attempt to take those arms, must do it at the hazard of 
instant death. Our brave and loyal troops swore with better than 
Flanders oaths, that they would not give them up. And this was about 
the only genuine thing, in all this varied and protracted sham of nego- 
tiations, demands, and refusals, etc. As between Twiggs and the Rebel 
commissioners, it was all masquerading and theatric shows. But, as to 
the part taken by Major Vinton and Captain Whiteley, of Military Com- 
mission (two as good soldiers, loyal citizens, and pure. Christian gentle- 
men as ever held commissions), they did the best they could, and as they 
were bound to do. For all these transactions were under Twigg's eye 
and direction, and in his office, which was appointed as the place of 
the joint-meetings. 

On February 12th, the Rebel Commissioners reply and controvert 
pretty much all of that note. 

On the I5tli of February, the Military Commission suddenly an- 
nounce, "that the conditions you prescribe for the movement of the 
Federal troops from Texas, will necessarily check, for a short time at 
least, further conference with you on that subject, inasmuch as it is one 
over which we have no control.'' 

"The commander of the department, whoever he viay be, whether 
acting under his own judgment, or by the advice or instructions of his 
superiors, has exclusive authority in such cases, and to him must we 
refer the present one, with a report of all our proceedings, for his approval 



:ai8 

— 49 — 

or disapproval ; and in view of an immediate change of commanders of 
the'department of Texas, General Twiggs having been superseded by 
Colonel Waite, all the proceedings of the Military Commission appointed 
by the former officers, must be submitted for the consideration and sanc- 
tion of latter, etc. 

(Signed.) 

Here, then, was "a pretty spot of work." This Joe Holt, the new 
Secretary of War, was no lineal successor to John B. Floyd. He had 
stupidly relieved Twiggs, ordered him to Washington, and put a plain, 
old-fashioned honest soldier in his place. What to do now ? Hear. 

San Antonio, Texas, February i6, 1861. 
Six o'clock, A. M. 
To the Officer in Cofnniand of the Department of Texas : 

Sir: — You are hereby required, in the name and by the authority 
of the people of the State of Texas, in convention assembled, to deliver 
up all the military posts and public property held by or under your 
control. 

Respectfully, etc., 

THOMAS T. DEVINE, 
S. A. MAVERICK, 
P. N. LUCKETT, 

Committee, etc. 

You can not fail to notice in this curt note : First, the speed of the 
growing movement. "Six o'clock, A. M." Second, the person ad- 
dressed. It is no longer Brevet Major-General Twiggs. It is "To the 
Officer in Command," etc. (whoever he may be, understood.) Third, 
the dropping out of the word "respectfully," formerly always 
written before, " required^ Fourth, the change of the former most 
formally courteous conclusions, " We are, gentlemen, very respectfully , 
your obedient servants,'' into ''Respectfully, etc.;" and, Fifth, that this 
promptitude and haste were stimulated by the disclosure of the fact that 
their great southern friend was superseded. 

However, the other side seems to have survived this prompt con- 
tempt. And so, having sent out an ambuscade to capture the new 
Yankee Officer, Waite, and a special order to " Ben. McCulloch, Mili- 
tary Officer," in some unknown branch of some unknown army of some 
unknown government, all unknownable, to hurry up his K. G. C.'s 
for battle. 

On the 17th of February, they again address a known person — 
Brevet Major- General D. E. Twiggs, etc. : 

Sir : — In our communication of the i6th instant, we required a 
delivery up by you of the position held, and public property held by or 
under vour control as Commander in this department. As no reply, save 



■113 



5o — 



your z/<fr(5a/ declaration (which declaration was, that you "gave up every- 
thing"'), has been given to our note, and as the undersigned are most 
anxious to avoid the possibility of a collision between the Federal troops 
and the force acting on behalf of the State of Texas, a collision which 
all reflecting persons desire to avoid, and the consequences of which no 
man can predict, we again demand the surrender up to the under- 
signed of all the posts and public property held by you or under your 
control in the department. 

Please answer immediately. We have the honor to remain, 

Your obedient servants, 

(Signed.) 

To this note, General Twiggs replies forthwith, agreeing to every 
demand, except his repeated provisions as to the retention by the troops 
of their arms and clothing, etc. 

On the same day, the Commissioners reply, agreeing to his 
provisos, except, they demand the delivery of all means of transpor- 
tation at the coast, and, "as likewise the artillery, if any be taken." On 
the morning of the i8th of February, Twiggs begs them " not to insist 
on a demand of the guns of the two light batteries," especially, he adds, 
" as you must see, I am not at liberty to grant it.'' 

The Commissioners immediately agree to this humble request of 
Twiggs, to relinquish their claim on this artillery. And so the treaty is 
concluded. And General Twiggs formally issues his General order No. 
5, of Feb. i8, 1861, before noticed in another connection, making his 
long-promised surrender, and the commissioners thereupon make and 
deliver to him their agreement, so "formally attd solemnly" made, and 
which was soon to be so infamously broken. All these notes, from that 
curt specimen of February 16, 1861, 6 A. M., were written with Ben Mc- 
Cullocli s army of Knights of the Golden Circle, "in coigns of vantage," 
beseiging the one hundred and sixty Uftited States troops confined to 
their quarters. 

And thus was consummated one of the meanest and yet most suc- 
cessful treasons — a double treason, too — of all history. Its utter mean- 
ness, its ignominious want of all honorable principles or shows of com- 
mon decency, are too obvious to require explanation or enforcement. 
Of its SUCCESSES, yh^ first was, that it carried the so-called election, five 
days afterward. Without this brilliant coup-de-main (the first victory 
of Rebellion), the majority would have surely been, in Texas, for the 
Union cause. As it was, only forty-two thousand votes (less than half 
the total vote of the State) was polled, of which thirteen thousand votes 
were given by the now confounded and dismayed Unionists. And just 
here"(a second and great success) was the beginning of that series of 
flockings, pari passu, with every disaster to the Union cause, of our 
Douglass democrats, and our Bell and Everett men to the winning side 
— the Breckenridge Democrats — who received them more gracefully 



120 



5' — 



than they came into their Rebel folds. A third gain to the Rebellion 
was the immense money and military values of the public arms and 
other war properties, on the very verge of the coming war, which it 
hastened, if it did not determine. Fourthly. Our National prestige lost, 
was a vast and instant impulse to Secession and Rebellion in every 
slave State. The announcement of Governor T. O. Moore, Governor 
of Louisiana, to these Rebel Commissioners (who must have laughed in 
their sleeves at his adjectives), denotes truly that Rebellion impulse. 

". . I take pleasure in stating to you that Major-General Twiggs, 
late Commanding Department of Texas, was recently welcomed to New 
Orleans, with civic and military honors worthy of his bravery, his tal- 
ents, and his long and very distinguished services." """^ 

And this loss of men from our ranks, leaping and^ thronging like 
flocks of mesmerized sheep after some mesmerizing Secession Bell- 
weather, went on throughout Texas and the South generally, to 
such a point, that, though we reallly had such majorities as I 
have alleged down to the beginning of 1861, by the time I fled from 
the State, in the fall of 1861, I could count on the fingers of my hands 
every Union man, not a German, I knew of whom I could trust as 
a Union man. A decisive defeat, in a common political election, fur- 
nishes a sad lesson in human virtue, from such selfish flockings from the 
minority to the majority-party. But, compared to the same exhibition 
m a revolutionary contest uttder a popular government, that proof of 
human weakness and meanr^ess is a feeble affair, as was so sadly exem- 
plified by bitter experiences in that RebeUion. 

General Twiggs was immediately made Major-General in the Con- 
federate army, with head-quarters at New Orleans. It was my mistrust 
of him — for we now knew each other too well — -which made me attempt 
my return to the Stars and Stripes through Mexico rather than through 
New Orleans. He distinguished his new rank command and loyalty by 
no remarkable deed, save the sending to President Buchanan a letter, 
threatening to come on and to assassinate him for the word " treachery " 
in his order of March ist, dismissing him (Twiggs) from the army. In 
a short time, his disease disabled him from his new duties, and he was 
retired from service, to die on September 15, 1862, at Augusta, Ga. 

With this disjointed and imperfect narrative of this most interesting 
and much misunderstood branch of our late Secession War, and which is 
now submitted to future historians, more for its suggesting than supply- 
ing their sources of histroic truth, I now close. Let us, however, as well 
for ourselves personally, as for the whole nation, in all future times, de- 
duce from this crude memoir, this grand lesson for all popular govern- 
ments, viz : Beware — above all dangers — beware of these misl«aders 
of the people — the demagogues. There is no limit to the atrocity of 
their purposes, nor to the extent of their ruinous results ; — from those 
of mere maladministration, down to those of Revolution and Treason. 



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